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HARRIS: Boasted of Her Role in the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan
During an April 25, 2021 interview on CNN, VP Harris boasted that she had been the “last person in the room” with President Biden when he made his then-recent decision to withdraw all remaining U.S. troops and American civilians from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021 — a target date that would subsequently be changed to August 31, 2021. When the withdrawal from Afghanistan was eventually carried out that August, it was an infamously chaotic catastrophe which:
BIDEN: Portrayed the Afghanistan Withdrawal as an “Extraordinary Success”
President Biden delivered an address on August 31, 2021, in which he lauded “the extraordinary success of this mission” and proclaimed: “I give you my word: With all of my heart, I believe this is the right decision, a wise decision, and the best decision for America.”
WALZ: Whitewashes the Biden-Harris Withdrawal from Afghanistan
In July 2024, Governor Walz whitewashed the disastrous manner in which the Biden-Harris administration had withdrawn U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. “[I]t was a messy situation,” said Walz, “the situation with the Taliban and the things that Donald Trump led [sic] up to it. Exiting a conflict is never going to be good. That situation was horrific…. I think the biggest thing was, is an understanding that the way that that was prosecuted, the way that we tried to bring stability, was simply going to be incredibly difficult…. So, look, the Afghan withdrawal was tragic, but it was a longstanding situation that rolled over many, many months and over both terms of presidents.”
TRUMP: His Agreement with the Taliban Was Contingent upon Specific Requirements
The Biden-Harris administration blamed former President Trump for the chaos surrounding the U.S. troop withdrawal, claiming that Trump had negotiated a timeline for withdrawal that his successors were bound to abide by. But that was untrue. The agreement that the Trump administration had negotiated with the Taliban in February 2020 called for the U.S. to reduce the number of its troops in Afghanistan from 13,000 to 8,600 by July 2020, followed eventually by a full U.S. withdrawal by May 1, 2021. That withdrawal, however, was contingent upon the Taliban meeting a series of clearly articulated non-aggression requirements — most notably, that it would not permit Afghanistan to again become a safe haven for jihadist terrorists. Those requirements had not been met, but Biden-Harris nevertheless proceeded with their withdrawal.