The Patriot Post® · The Biden/Harris Afghanistan Catastrophe Still Matters

Tomorrow marks the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in which 19 jihadis slaughtered 2,977 innocent people. Three years ago, to take a victory lap ahead of the attack’s 20th anniversary, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris disgraced the victims’ memory and squandered the blood of military Patriots spilled in Afghanistan by surrendering and retreating, abandoning that nation’s men, women, and children to the tyrannical rule the Taliban terrorists, armed with billions of dollars in first generation American military equipment.

Twenty years for nothing but another Fall of Saigon moment, followed by worldwide chaos, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s brutal assault on Israel.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, under Chairman Mike McCaul of Texas, released a 353-page report Monday detailing the Biden/Harris failures. We’ve used up plenty of digital ink on that debacle over the years, but it’s worth revisiting in light of these significant anniversaries.

Democrats dismiss the report as partisan, but it largely agrees with the 2,000-page Army assessment issued in 2022.

Titled “Willful Blindness,” the House report establishes Biden’s track record of retreat dating back to the Vietnam War, from which he advocated withdrawal as a senator in the early 1970s. Combined with the Afghanistan catastrophe, the GOP report says it demonstrates Biden’s “pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners.”

It wasn’t long after the disaster before Biden blamed Donald Trump for the withdrawal plan. Biden wanted us to believe that, for the first and only time, he was bound by something Trump set in motion. It was a brazen lie.

The GOP report reaches “five primary conclusions,” among which is Team Biden’s deception: “The Biden-Harris administration misled and, in some instances, directly lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal, from before the go-to-zero order until today. This coverup included mid-level administration officials all the way up to the Oval Office.”

Another of those five conclusions is key: “The Biden-Harris administration was determined to withdraw from Afghanistan, with or without the Doha Agreement and no matter the cost. Accordingly, they ignored the conditions in the Doha Agreement, pleas of the Afghan government, and the objections by our NATO allies, deciding to unilaterally withdraw from the country.”

The Doha agreement did come from the Trump administration, which signed it in February 2020. That deal had its flaws, but it was contingent on the Taliban playing by the rules, which Trump had already decided by the fall of 2020 was not happening. “For that reason,” the report says, “President Trump decided to maintain 2,500 U.S. troops in the country until he left office on January 20, 2021.”

Then Biden took office and committed three big blunders: He “severely limited” input from key officials, “disregarded” the Taliban’s failures, and “ignored” warnings and advice from advisers and allies. The advisers included the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the commander of U.S. Central Command, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The withdrawal “was premised on his longstanding and unyielding opinion that the United States should no longer be in Afghanistan.”

Harris bragged about being the last person in the room when the final decision was made. Together, they own the debacle.

If ABC’s moderator David Muir doesn’t bring it up in tonight’s debate, Trump should ask Harris if she still thinks Biden’s decision was “courageous and right.” Of course, Muir practically works for the Harris campaign, so I’m not holding my breath.

America is weaker and the world more chaotic because Biden and Harris stubbornly insisted on pulling out of Afghanistan. They left behind roughly 1,000 Americans and thousands of Afghan allies, many of whom have been systematically killed by the Taliban. Abandoning Bagram Air Base left military personnel to conduct an evacuation from Kabul’s civilian airport. Taliban “security” failed to stop a suicide bomber who killed 13 Americans and hundreds of Afghans. Four Afghans fell to their deaths from the landing gear of departing aircraft. Countless others still suffer and die under the oppression of the Taliban. Seven American citizens are still being held by the Taliban, which is parading $7 billion worth of our military equipment down the street to celebrate while spending $57 million in currency we also left behind.

Rather than a victory lap, Biden and Harris destroyed American credibility and deterrence. The body count is a big reason for the American people to reject her in November.