The GOP's Phony Complaints About Afghanistan

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Will Saletan
@saletan
Nearly everything Republicans now decry—troop withdrawals, released prisoners, acceptance of Taliban deadlines, acquiescence to al-Qaida—happened last year.

But Republicans ignored all of it, because the president who forced those concessions was Trump.

The GOP’s Phony Complaints About Afghanistan
Nearly everything Republicans are decrying happened under Trump.
slate.com
4:31 AM · Aug 27, 2021

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/republicans-phony-complaints-afghanistan-exit-trump.html

On Thursday, suicide bombers killed scores of people outside the Kabul airport, including at least 12 American service members. Congressional Republicans snapped into action, demanding that President Joe Biden resign or be impeached. It’s the latest outburst in a string of political opportunism. For weeks, Republicans have been all over cable TV, lambasting Biden for withdrawing troops. They’ve professed dismay that thousands of jailed Taliban fighters were released from prison, that al-Qaida operatives are still in Afghanistan, and that the American president accepted a Taliban deadline to get out. All of these complaints are phony. Nearly everything the Republicans are decrying happened last year. But Republicans defended or ignored it, because the president who engineered those concessions was Donald Trump.

On Feb. 29, 2020, the Trump administration signed a deal with the Taliban to pull all American troops out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. The deal also required the Afghan government to release 5,000 imprisoned Taliban fighters. Hawks called the agreement weak and dangerous, but Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, advised them not to speak out against it. In March 2020, at hearings of the House Armed Services Committee, some lawmakers worried about the deal, but most, including Reps. Jim Banks and Matt Gaetz, said nothing about it. Another Republican member of the committee, Rep. Mo Brooks, expressed his impatience to pull out, noting that American forces had long ago “destroyed al-Qaida’s operational capability” in Afghanistan.

In July 2020, the committee took up the National Defense Authorization Act, which would fund the military for the next year. Democratic Rep. Jason Crow presented an amendment that would make the Afghan pullout contingent on several requirements. These included “consultation and coordination” with allies, protection of “United States personnel in Afghanistan,” severance of the Taliban from al-Qaida, prevention of “terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan,” and adequate “capacity of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces” to fight off Taliban attacks. The amendment also required investigation of any prisoners, released as part of the deal, who might be connected to terrorism. In short, the amendment would do what Trump had failed to do: impose real conditions on the withdrawal. Crow told his colleagues that he, too, wanted to get out, but that Afghan security forces weren’t yet “ready to stand on their own.”

Gaetz dismissed these warnings. The Taliban was already taking over the country, he argued, and imposing conditions would just get in the way of the pullout. “I don’t think there’s ever a bad day to end the war in Afghanistan,” he said.

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