Special to WorldTribune, August 19, 2021
By Fred Fleitz
Like many Trump supporters who agreed with President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, I knew it was possible this could result in the Taliban seizing control of the country.
However, I was confident the Trump administration would avoid or at least postpone this horrible outcome because it would implement an orderly withdrawal in full cooperation with the Afghan government and military.
Instead of an orderly withdrawal, President Biden ordered a sudden pullout of U.S. troops without a plan or any preparation. Biden blindsided the Afghan government, the Afghan military and America’s allies.
The implications of Biden’s national security incompetence are now so profound that Congressional Republicans should plan to impeach him and Vice President Harris.
The Afghan military might have held off the Taliban if it had been given time to prepare and if the U.S. withdrawal had not been at the height of the fighting season. Joe Biden’s sudden withdrawal pulled the rug out from under the Afghan military and devastated their morale.
The U.S. abandoned the massive Bagram airbase in the dead of night without giving the Afghan government notice. Biden not only abruptly halted U.S. air support that was crucial for the Afghan army, but he also withdrew U.S. contractors who maintained the Afghan air force.
Biden moved forward with the withdrawal even though the Taliban accelerated its advance in recent weeks. Biden officials responded with the absurd warning that the U.S. would isolate a Taliban government and deny it aid if it took the country by force.
The Biden administration later meekly advised the Taliban that U.S. aid was possible in the future if it spared the U.S. embassy.
Now the U.S. embassy has been evacuated. China, Iran and Russia are prepared to work with a Taliban government.
There is chaos at the Kabul airport as desperate Afghans swarm military planes to flee the country.
Biden has been forced to send an additional 5,000 troops to the Kabul airport to help carry out “an orderly and safe” drawdown and evacuate U.S. personnel and Afghans who assisted the U.S. military.
U.S. allies are angry at Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. British and German officials have complained that they were not consulted on the withdrawal and that it violates Biden’s promise for “global engagement” and to work more closely with U.S. allies.
A UK Parliament member asked “”Whatever happened to ‘America is back’?” U.S. friends and allies in the Middle East and Asia are asking whether America can be counted on to come to their aid at a time of crisis in light of the Afghanistan debacle.
Having said all this, it’s worth stressing that Biden ordered this calamitous and sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan – and refused to delay it — so he could brag that he withdrew all U.S. troops from the country by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in his 2011 memoir that Joe Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Remember also that Biden opposed the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
The crises in Afghanistan and on the U.S. southern border as well as inept Biden policies on Iran, China, Russia, climate change and other issues are what happens when such an appallingly incompetent person becomes president.
Making this worse, Most of Biden senior national security advisers are unqualified yes-men. Putting aside his buffoonish vice president Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are third stringers and out of their league.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin apparently has so little influence with Biden that the president forgot his name at a press conference.
The Afghanistan debacle is a wake-up call for America that Biden’s extreme foreign policy incompetence is endangering our national security.
So what should be done?
President Biden should immediately replace his top national security officials with competent experts who have experience and gravitas.
Blinken, Sullivan and Austin must go and be replaced with Democratic experts Biden can work with like Senator Chris Coons, former Congresswoman Jane Harman former Senator Jim Webb or defense expert Michele Flournoy.
Biden should make CIA Director William Burns – his only truly competent cabinet-level national security official – National Security Adviser or Secretary of State.
I see little chance Biden will take this step to salvage his national security policy.
That’s why I am also calling for congressional Republicans to announce they will seek the impeachment and removal of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris if they win control of Congress in the 2022 mid-term elections.
Republicans need to be clear with the American people the profound damage the Biden administration is doing to American national security and to domestic security with its failure to secure the southern border.
Americans must realize that that America’s enemies will be emboldened by Biden’s cowardly and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan. What will Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, ISIS and Hamas do in response to this humiliation of the United States.
We cannot wait for a possible Republican president to reverse the severe damage the Biden administration is doing to American national and homeland security.
Republican members of Congress therefore must commit to removing Biden and Harris in January 2023 if they, as expected, win control of Congress next year.
Fred Fleitz is President and CEO of the Center for Security Policy and a member of the WorldTribune.com Board of Advisors.
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