Like Biden, Attleboro area congressman blames Afghan government for nation's fall
U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a former Marine who led a platoon while serving in Afghanistan in 2012, on Monday put the blame for the catastrophic fall of Afghanistan on its “corrupt” leaders while praising “rank-and-file” soldiers.
“I served with Afghan rank and file — they were good soldiers and loyal to their country,” he said in an email to The Sun Chronicle. “But they had no faith in their corrupt leadership — the Afghan president fleeing in the face of the Taliban is an exemplar of the partnership we’ve had for two decades…
“The Afghan government’s ineptitude and corruption left their soldiers abandoned, weakened, and left watching their president flee in their country’s greatest time of need.”
Auchincloss, a first-term Democrat who represents the Attleboro area in Congress, also said the U.S. has made poor decisions for two decades, which added to the problems.
“The war in Afghanistan has been a failure of American national security leadership over the last twenty years,” he said.
But he praised President Biden for finally pulling out of the war-ravaged country even as Afghans who may have worked with the U.S. desperately tried to board American military aircraft Monday to escape the deadly wrath of the Taliban.
Video of those efforts was reminiscent of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975 when Vietnamese were clinging to a helicopter taking off from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon, a number of observers said.
“We have known that the war was not winnable for years, but President Biden had the integrity to tell the truth to the American people,” Auchincloss said.
Despite the disastrous end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan the U.S. will always do what it needs to do to protect itself, he said.
“The United States is always going to maintain the right to defend its homeland by neutralizing terror threats wherever they arise,” Auchincloss said. “We are not going to close the door on necessary military action in the future, but we are not going to be in the business of nation building or counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.”
Biden, meanwhile, took to the airwaves Monday afternoon and laid the blame for the lightning-quick and devastating Taliban takeover in Afghanistan directly at the feet of the Afghan government.
While some blame Biden for the catastrophe unfolding in the war-torn land, he said he stands by his decision to withdraw, while acknowledging the takeover took place faster than anyone predicted.
“This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” the president said.
He blamed the Afghan leadership for the nation’s dire and tragic situation.
“So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country,” Biden said. “The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.”
And that makes it clear his decision was the right one, he said.
“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” Biden said in a speech from the White House.
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future,” the president said.
Source:
George W. Rhodes