Following the harrowing, yet unfortunately expected news of the Taliban in Afghanistan capturing Herat and Kandahar Thursday — and that the United States must now deploy troops to help evacuate personnel from our Kabul embassy — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell eviscerated President Joe Biden’s “reckless” Afghanistan strategy and demanded the president reverse course.
Taliban forces have overtaken multiple provincial capitals in just the past week and now aim to topple the entire Afghan government.
The Kentucky Republican also warned that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan would “resonate throughout the global jihadist movement” and analogized the situation to the ISIS takeover of Iraq and Syria that unleashed genocide and barbarism, causing U.S. forces to return to the region after former President Barack Obama irresponsibly withdrew them a decade ago.
The Biden administration has feebly defended its Afghanistan strategy amid Taliban success and imminent disaster.
A few important excerpts from McConnell’s statement include:
- “The Biden Administration has reduced U.S. officials to pleading with Islamic extremists to spare our Embassy as they prepare to overrun Kabul. 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.”
- “Unless President Biden adjusts course quickly, the Taliban is on track to secure a significant military victory. The latest news of a further drawdown at our Embassy and a hasty deployment of military forces seem like preparations for the fall of Kabul. President Biden’s decisions have us hurtling toward an even worse sequel to the humiliating fall of Saigon in 1975.”
- “President Biden’s strategy has turned an imperfect but stable situation into a major embarrassment and a global emergency in a matter of weeks,” McConnell concluded. “President Biden is finding that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it. The costs and ramifications will echo across the world.”
The GOP leader also said the commander in chief should provide air support past Aug. 31 to Afghan forces, so that the Taliban won’t “celebrate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning down our Embassy in Kabul.”