Kansas, Missouri Democrats offer little defense of Biden on Afghan withdrawal
Kansas and Missouri Republicans sharply criticized President Joe Biden on Monday, a day after the Taliban seized Kabul, saying the president who prides himself on his foreign policy experience is overseeing a disastrous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Democrats, on the other hand, offered little in the president’s defense as chaos engulfed the capital’s airport, drawing comparisons to the evacuation of Saigon in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War.
“What is clear is that we lacked accurate intelligence and therefore proper planning regarding the safety of American and foreign diplomats and the many Afghans who worked to support the U.S. mission,” said Rep. Sharice Davids, Kansas’s sole Democrat in Congress. “We will seek to gain a better understanding of those decisions in the days ahead, but for now we must focus on their safety as our top priority.”
The Biden administration has scrambled to defend its management of the withdrawal as the Taliban quickly seized the country, forcing a chaotic evacuation and the authorization of around 6,000 troops to help get Americans and its allies out safely.
In a speech Monday, Biden said the Taliban took Afghanistan faster than he expected. But he stood by the withdrawal of American troops, saying he was unwilling to ask them to fight when Afghan troops would not.
“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”
Few members of either party made demands that America now sustain a long-term military commitment or reconsider the ultimate goal of withdrawal.
Instead, the delegations urged a focus on evacuating Americans and U.S. allies as the American-backed Afghan government swiftly collapsed.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, deflected questions about what went wrong in Afghanistan, saying he was focused on helping people who may be in harm’s way.
“There will be plenty of time to discuss what went wrong, what we could have done differently, and our nation’s decades-long failed foreign policy in Afghanistan and the Middle East,” Cleaver said. “However, in this critical moment, we must focus all of our efforts and energy on evacuating American citizens, diplomats, and other officials, as well as the Afghans and the families of those who courageously served at our side.”
The office of Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat, declined to comment on the situation, saying they were still gathering facts about the situation. On Twitter, she called for the United States to accept more refugees.
Meanwhile, Republicans did not wait to heap criticism on Biden.
“President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan has been a disastrous display of incompetence that has provoked a humanitarian crisis,” Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said.
Republicans drew a distinction between how the president had managed the American withdrawal and the idea that the military should leave the country, and for the most part made few comments suggesting the United States maintain a permanent military presence.
The Biden administration failed to adequately prepare and safeguard Americans and individuals who helped the American government, said Hawley, who has long advocated for withdrawal. The senator added that the administration had also “drastically underestimated” the speed with which the Taliban would seize Kabul and other parts of the country.
Under former President Donald Trump, the United States reached a deal with the Taliban last year to remove troops from the country in 2021. The agreement called for discussions between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban and for the Taliban to stop Al Qaeda from operating in its territory.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended his role in the negotiations on Sunday, telling Fox News Sunday that he didn’t trust the Taliban as the process moved forward and emphasized the conditions the group would have to meet.
On Monday, Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman, said that Taliban leaders understood that if they didn’t follow through on the commitments they had made during months of negotiation, the repercussions would be swift and severe. During an appearance in Wichita, he called Biden’s approach to withdrawing troops “leading with weakness.”
“It is begging. It is apologizing for America,” Pompeo said.
Jason Kander, a former Democratic Missouri secretary of state who served as an Army Intelligence Officer in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007, said that in trying to carry out a plan put forward by the Trump administration, the Biden administration didn’t accurately assess what was going to happen on the ground.
But the White House is trying to remedy that, he said.
“You can’t absolve the administration and say this has gone well, but an administration was going to have to step up and say, it’s time to leave,” said Kander, who leads the Veterans Community Project.
But Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said the United States could have maintained “a limited presence that provided stability in Afghanistan and protected our national security interests.” Blunt, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the chaotic withdrawal will prove to be a major mistake and that the United States faces a devastating collapse of its intelligence-gathering capabilities in Afghanistan.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, invoked Pompeo’s approach on Twitter, writing that you can negotiate peace with the Taliban but can’t trust them. In a formal statement, the senator said Biden had “projected weakness, and in turn caused chaos in Afghanistan.”
Kansas’s other senator, Republican Jerry Moran, said the chaos in Kabul was preventable and he faulted what he called a “lack of urgency” by the Biden administration to aid Afghans who worked alongside Americans.
“The Biden administration’s unorganized and haphazard withdraw process will make our country and the world less secure,” Moran said.
This story was originally published August 16, 2021 at 4:40 PM.
