Michael Waltz, the first Green Beret elected to Congress, condemned President Biden's Afghan withdrawal on Friday, saying the country&...
Michael Waltz, the first Green Beret elected to Congress, condemned President Biden's Afghan withdrawal on Friday, saying the country's rapid descent into chaos made a mockery of his reputation as a foreign policy expert.
Instead, the Republican said it demonstrated how Biden had a knack for making mistakes overseas.
'It was only a month ago when President Biden declared "the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely,"' he wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News.
'It’s unclear whether Biden is clueless or heartless or both. But he is living up to his reputation of being "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades," as described by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
'It’s worth remembering that Biden also opposed the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden.'
Taliban fighters stand guard inside the city of Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. The Taliban have largely completed their sweep of the country's south
Taliban fighters stand guard inside the city of Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Friday,as they kept up the rapid pace of their advance through the country
Pink areas show Taliban control while green represents territory held by the government as insurgents move through the country towards the capital Kabul
The Biden campaign trumpeted his foreign policy qualifications during last year's election.
Before becoming president, he served as chair or ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 12 years during his time in Congress and took on the role of last-in-the-room counsellor to President Obama on international affairs when he was vice president.
But that leaves a long record of missteps that critics have seized on.
In 1991, he voted against the Gulf War, which quickly ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait, yet 12 years later voted in favor of invading Iraq, a decision that triggered more than a decade of war the rise of ISIS.
And most famously, in 2011 he counselled against launching a military raid into Pakistan based on intelligence that Osama bin Laden had been tracked down to a villa close to the Pakistani army training academy. It put him on the wrong side of one of Obama's most successful foreign policy decisions.
Now, he is under intense pressure over his timetable to bring all U.S. troops home by August 31.
On Friday insurgents claimed Kandahar, the country's second biggest city, Herat, close to the Iranian border, and Ghazni, on the road south from Kabul, as they continued their lightning advance.
The result is a growing humanitarian emergency and frantic efforts to evacuate western embassies.
Some 3000 U.S. troops are on the way to Kabul's airport to assist a partial evacuation of the American embassy, as staff prepare to destroy documents, computers and sensitive data.
Rep. Michael Waltz blasted President Biden for his handling of the Afghan withdrawal. 'It’s unclear whether Biden is clueless or heartless or both,' he said
Taliban fighters celebrate the capture of Kandahar, the economic hub of southern Afghanistan and the birthplace of their insurgency in the 1990s. They now control most of the south and the north of the country leaving the government increasingly besieged in Kabul and a central swath, stretching east and west
A Taliban fighter holds a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) along the roadside in Herat, Afghanistan's third biggest city, on Friday after the US announced it was sending 3,000 troops back into Afghanistan
Waltz, who served on multiple tours of the country during his 24-year military career, said he was 'tormented' by having to watch the Taliban on the road to retaking Afghanistan before the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
'As a Green Beret, I’m fearful for my abandoned Afghan interpreters who have been given a death sentence by the Taliban because they joined America in our fight for freedom over terror,' wrote Rep. Waltz.
'As a father, I’m sickened by what’s to come for the Afghan women and girls that are being mercilessly abused by the Taliban and sold into sex slavery.'
But he added it was not too late to change course by committing air power to support Afghan ground troops, abandoning pointless peace talks, and halting aid to Pakistan for their support of the insurgents.
'The Taliban are in the open and exposed as they maneuver to surround Afghan cities,' he wrote. 'Just as we did in 2001, small groups of special forces partnered with the Air Force will make a dramatic impact and reverse the Taliban’s psychological narrative that victory is inevitable.'
Like other Republicans, he said it was 'stunning' to see White House officials such as Jen Psaki publicly urging the Taliban to consider what role they wanted in the international community.
'The Taliban could care less whether they are invited to European Embassy cocktail parties,' he said. 'They care about brutal control.'
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Afghanistan was careening towards a predictable and preventable disaster after Biden turned a stable situation into an emergency.
'The Biden administration has reduced U.S. officials to pleading with Islamic extremists to spare our embassy as they prepare to overrun Kabul,' he said.
'Absurdly, naively, our government is arguing that bloodshed might hurt the Taliban’s international reputation, as if radical terrorists are anxious about their P.R.
'The Taliban doesn’t believe in a political settlement. They want military victory and bloody retribution. President Biden and his team have a proud superpower trying to fight atrocities and war crimes with plaintive tweets.'
Biden officials, including Psaki and State Department envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, have warned the Taliban they face international isolation if they continue on their path of violence.
Khalilzad also reportedly appealed to Taliban negotiators to spare the U.S. embassy if their fighters overran the capital Kabul.
The administration has also tried to shift blame to former President Trump and the deal he negotiated with the Taliban, saying the departure was 'preordained.'
But Mike Pompeo, Trump's secretary of state, said the plan would have yielded an orderly withdrawal.
'The Biden administration’s sending of over 3,000 American troops back into Afghanistan is a result of poor planning and poor leadership in attempting to execute an operation that had been set up for success by the Trump administration,' he said.
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