This morning Tom Cotton said that getting out of Afghanistan by August 31, as Biden has suggested in the past, would risk leaving many Americans behind in the country:
If President Biden leaves Afghanistan by August 31, he risks leaving American citizens behind. pic.twitter.com/upeQ8ThNqu
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) August 23, 2021
Cotton makes a great point, noting that if we are to pull out on the 31st, then we have to begin packing up much sooner so that we can be ready to leave.
I believe Biden has said we’d need to stay longer in the last few days, but Doocy noted, the Taliban have already said that they will not allow us to stay longer or there will be ‘consequences’:
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan past 8/31.
Taliban Spokesman: “It's a red line. Pres. Biden announced on 8/31 they would withdraw all military forces… The answer is no. Or there would be consequences.”
pic.twitter.com/oJmYCVXrGV— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) August 23, 2021
Cotton said that yesterday Secretary of State Blinken claimed that we should just accept the reality that the Taliban are in control of Kabul. But Cotton strenuously disagrees, saying:
We don’t have to accept that. The Taliban is in control of Kabul until the United States says we are in control of Kabul. And if they want to attack our people at that airport, we have more than enough combat power in the United States military to fight back and destroy those attacks. That’s what Joe Biden should say we’re going to do until we get every single American out of Afghanistan.
He’s exactly right. There’s no way we should leave any American behind in Afghanistan, especially after Biden let the Taliban have it so easily. If it means staying in Kabul until the job is done, that’s exactly what we should do and we should dare the Taliban to come at us.
But I think we should do even more than just stay at the airport. Many countries are sending their troops into Kabul to get their people out, except the US. Biden believes in trusting the Taliban to allow safe passage, but that’s a deal with the devil that ain’t going like he’d hoped. Biden needs to send our troops out into the city to extract our people and get them to the airport safely. End of story.