Biden botched Afghanistan, and the American people don't buy his excuses
In a hastily planned press conference this week, President Joe Biden tried to explain to the American people why the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has gone so badly.
He blamed President Trump, of course, for the deal between his administration and the Taliban.
When I came into office, I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021 — just a little over three months after I took office.
He also blamed the Afghan military for giving up and allowing the Taliban to rampage across the country...
Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight... If the political leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were down, they would never have done so while U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan bearing the brunt of the fighting for them.
...and argued that the Chinese would have liked to see U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan.
And our true strategic competitors — China and Russia — would love nothing more than the United States to continue to funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing Afghanistan indefinitely.
The pundits and experts were quick to decimate each point of Biden's argument, but the American people don't need the opinions of "experts" to tell them that Biden botched Afghanistan. They have eyes, and they've seen the reports.
The Taliban have already begun executing detainees, raping women, and forcing girls as young as 15 to marry terrorists. Heartbreaking video emerged this week of Afghans desperately clinging to the fuselage of an Air Force transport plane, and some held on long enough to fall to their deaths.
This is why, according to a new poll from Convention of States Action and the Trafalgar Group, nearly 70% of all Americans believe the president mishandled the situation in Afghanistan. This includes 89% of Republicans, 75% of Independents, and a plurality of Democrats at 48%.
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