Posted on 08/16/2021 10:10:48 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too
From the floor of the Senate. Transcript from The Congressional Record:
Quote: "Biden takes the easy way out of Afghanistan. The likely result is disaster." This is the morning's lead editorial from one of the Nation's most liberal newspapers.
The administration has decided to abandon U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, which have helped keep radical Islamic terrorism in check, and bizarrely, they decided to do so by September 11. Apparently, we are to help our adversaries ring in the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by giftwrapping the country and handing it right back to them.
Here is what this administration's own national intelligence threat assessment says will happen:
The Taliban is likely to make gains on the battlefield, and the Afghan government will struggle to hold the Taliban at bay if the coalition withdraws support.
This is a quote from this administration.
In 2019, the Democratic leader and the now chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee expressed outrage that the previous administration considered hosting Taliban officials for discussions around the date of September 11.
But now a Democratic administration is going to skip the negotiations and just surrender an entire country back to the Taliban on the very same date? Our President should remember what happened when the Obama administration let political considerations rush a retreat from Iraq-- total chaos and bloodshed and ISIS.
Two years ago, I wrote a bipartisan amendment that warned a Republican administration against recklessly withdrawing from Afghanistan or Syria. A supermajority of Senators right here voted for it. A supermajority of Senators voted for it, warning that the terrorist threat had not abated. Where are the Democratic voices today?
I hope we will hear from some of them.
Unfortunately, this mistake in Afghanistan is one of several instances of this new administration's surrendering leverage without making America, our allies, or our interests more secure.
In January, President Biden extended the New START agreement with Russia by Executive order for 5 years--no strings attached, no concessions secured, not even a shorter term extension to keep up pressure on Russia to cooperate on a better agreement. Just a gift--a gift.
And then there is Iran. Senior administration officials have gone from denigrating the former administration's ``maximum pressure'' strategy to simply begging for direct talks with Iran, to proactively offering to remove sanctions that are ``inconsistent with the JCPOA.''
So which sanctions exactly are inconsistent with the JCPOA? Our sanctions on Iran's terrorist organizations or its ballistic missile program?
Most Republicans would be thrilled if President Biden could actually secure a better deal that holds Iran accountable. Giving up the leverage of sanctions before we even get to the table--before we even get to the table--or just return to a bad deal is certainly not a good sign.
It would be hard to support any deal that isn't part of a broader strategy that also confronts the nonnuclear threats Iran poses to America and to the region.
On China, the administration's tough talk has been welcome, but its proposal to cut defense spending after inflation suggests there is less interest in walking the walk. We will not keep pace with China and Russia by cutting defense spending to placate fringe parts of the far left.
The American people need and they deserve a foreign policy that puts our security, our partners, and our interests ahead of the reflexive desire to break with the last 4 years at any cost--at any cost.
If this administration wants a successful legacy on the world stage, if they want accomplishments that will endure, they need to put American strength back at the center and come back to a bipartisan mainstream.
This was Minority Leader McConnell's statement four months ago on the floor of the Senate just the week before Kamala Harris bragged about being the "last person in the room" when Biden decided to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Republicans got this one correct from the start.
-PJ
If that was the case, I daresay we never should have gone in to begin with. Bin Laden could have been taken out without invasion. We all knew this in the beginning. We also knew it would fall the moment we left. I remember having many discussions here on FR during that time about that very thing. At times, I was lambasted for my beliefs, because we were all starry eyed patriots just chomping at the bit to get back at em for 9/11. Well, here we are!
Put a sock in it McConnell, you RINO piece of schiff. Where were you to fight for Trump and pass his priorities? Where were you on the stolen election? Where were you on 1/6. Where were you on millions of illegals invading the southern border? Where were you to stop trillions in Democrat spending. McConnell, you are a horses ass. Take your commie CCP wife and get out of our country. You are not welcome here.
This from someone who voted for the free trade agreements with communist China. The fact that these free trade deals are what allowed them to build up their military while forcing us to borrow money for ours must be completely lost on him.
Mitch McConnell is the most useless of tools. Why post this ChiCom-owned puke’s Military-Industrial Complex rantings?
Globalist leftists like McConnell and the Bushes got us into this mess in the first place.
We could’ve gotten out of Afghanistan without this disaster, easily. Even now we could reduce the entire country to smoldering ash with conventional bombs and we won’t do it. Why? We know the answer.
FUMM!
Everyone knows Joe Biden is incompetent.
So, why no Resistance movement by the GOP?
It worked against Trump.
Instead, the GOP starts out with, he’s a good man, BS.
If this was Trump, impeachment charges would already be passed by the house.
To put more pressure on the Biden administration by showing the warnings that they got.
To put more pressure on the Republicans to hammer the issue instead of pulling back to protect their "friends across the aisle."
To hold them accountable for their words. They talked big in April, now pressure them to back up those words now that reality has set in.
-PJ
The only ones that can rid us of this drag on Democracy are the voters in Kentucky. Why isn’t there a mass effort there to recall or at least stop re-electing this worthless amphibian year after year??
Makes sense.
These politicians crack me up. Go send your own childre to die for a worthless cause. Go to fucking hell.
I've been McConnell's biggest detractor for at least a decade.
But you go to war the army you have, not the army you want.
And what we have is McConnell.
Since he accurately predicted what would happen back in April, and did it from the floor of the Senate, in a twisted way he "owns" the opposition pressure and pushback now that his prediction has come true.
However, I'm afraid that Republicans will revert to form and cower from power. They will take advantage of the August recess to hide from the LAAP-dog media instead of being out in front calling for resignations from the Biden administration.
They have an opportunity now to strike while the iron is hot, which is not a tendency they have shown in the past.
If they wanted to, they could use the chaos in Afghanistan to slow down the infrastructure bill, claiming that current events have made it too uncertain and risky to commit to such spending until we understand the ramifications that the collapse of Afghanistan will have on our adversaries like China and Russia.
McConnell could pressure Pelosi to pull back on the election reform bill, saying that the American people have lost confidence in the Biden Administration, and that pushing a national takeover of elections now would not be possible.
There is a lot that Republicans could do to take advantage of the crisis the way that Democrats would, but I fear that they won't if not pushed hard into it.
-PJ
Hear! Hear! Just read a statement from Pence. These people have no shame. They are cowards and treasonous to boot.
Yeah well from what I see the real afghanis are in fact the Taliban. The fake ones we trained and equipped for 20 years and they just handed everything over to the real afghanis! What a waste of Blood and Money!
The US decided in April of 1951 to not win wars using all out military force like World War II.
General Douglas MacArthur was fired by President Harry Truman for wanting to take the war to China after it intervened in Korea.
George W. Bush led this nation down the path of another Vietnam with his Republican Establishment Neoconservative cronies tough talking patriotic rhetoric etc. etc. masked the true policy.
Al Qaeda came out of Saudi Arabia a business ally of the USA.
The Taliban created by Pakistani military intelligence. Pakistan a nuclear weapons nation allied with China.
Trump knew this and tried to find a fighting way out of this massive and costly quagmire but oops he’s no longer in the White House.
Mitch McConnell was also against Trump removing troops from there. He’s part of the Military Industrial Complex.
Good Post.
Exactly.
The move out of Afghan, being there 20 years, was way overdue.
Where Biden screwed the pooch is executing a plan to exit.
Getting the Embassy and interpreters out PRIOR to the US military would have been a great first step.
Biden is a moron.
I remember when "Stormin'" Norman Schwarzkopf want to to take the war all the way to Baghdad to end it once and for all, and he was stopped by Colin Powell.
The American military has been self-hamstrung by the concept of "proportional force." We haven't been allowed to use all the means at our disposal for at least 50 years.
The LAAP-dog media has been attacking Israel over "disproportional force" against Palestinians ever since they occupied Gaza and started shooting rockets over the border.
And now we're being asked to fight with one arm tied behind our backs, because Germany and Japan are no longer the models, destroy, surrender, and reconstruct. Instead, "nation-building" requires that the infrastructure remain mostly intact, so we go easy with the military and drag it on for years, giving the enemy the time to learn and adapt.
-PJ
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