Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Ut.), 74, the Republican-in-name-only [RINO], who found a welcomed spot on CNN ripping former President Donald Trump at every opportunity, now says that Trump and Biden have it wrong withdrawing from Afghanistan. Biden’s April 17 decision to leave Afghanistan before the 20-year anniversary of Sept. 11 makes complete sense when you look at the big picture. Romney thinks U.S. forces need to occupy a sovereign nation indefinitely to stop the possibility of a terrorist attack. Romney forgets that 75-year-old former President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom Oct. 7, 2001, only three weeks after Sept. 11. Bush’s first Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell tried to negotiate the arrest or at least whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, all to no avail. After Taliban founder and Supreme Leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ignored U.S. requests, Bush went to war.
Omar’s Taliban government took power in 1996 and lasted until Nov. 14, 2001, when the extremist Sunni regime evacuated Kabul in response to the U.S. military onslaught. Bush promised that he would not try to nation-build in Afghanistan but found himself doing exactly that for the last 20 years. Biden Laden escaped Afghanistan about Dec. 15, 2001, eluding U.S. Special Forces and intel agencies until he was tracked down and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan by Navy Seal Team 6 May 2, 2011. Neutralizing Bin Laden was Bush’s top priority, something that took 10 years. “Leaving Americans behind and leaving leaving our Afghan friends behind who’ve worked with us would put up us and will put up us a moral stain,” Romney told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “This did not have to happen. It was preventable,” Mitt said, believing that Trump and Biden were wrong to end the Afghan War.
Romney thinks the U.S. should put U.S. military forces into harm’s way when Afghanistan has been overrun by the Taliban, with the U.S.-backed government of Ashraf Ghani collapsing. Spending over a $1 trillion in Afghanistan, supplying military advisors and combat troops to build up the Afghan military and government didn’t seem to make a difference. When Ghani was told Aug. 16 that the Taliban had breached the presidential palace, he executed his exit strategy, flying by helicopter to Krygystan, then to Doha, Qatar. Once Ghani fled, the U.S.-backed government collapsed along with the military, paving the way for a Taliban takeover. Romney’s not thinking clearly that after all the blood-and-treasure spent in Afghanistan, the U.S. is supposed to stay there indefinitely in order to stop a hypothetical terrorist attack. Romney’s logic makes zero sense with Taliban wanting the U.S. out.
Trump’s Feb. 29, 2020 deal struck by journeyman diplomat 72-year-old Zalmay Kahlilzad to remove all troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021 was a good deal for U.S. troops. Romney has no real reason to oppose the deal other than it was developed under former President Donald Trump. With Bin Laden dead and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS] founder and Supreme Leader Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi killed Oct. 27, 2019, both al-Qaeda and ISIS are in shambles. Whether or not some remnants of the terror groups exist in Afghanistan and elsewhere doesn’t mean they have the organizational capability to hit the U.S. again overseas. “If you focus on what we should do right now, recognize we’re in the position we’re in right now is because of terrible decisions made by two administrations,” Romney said, forgetting that Biden had four months in which to orchestrate an orderly-and-safe withdrawal.
Romney leaps to conclusions in Afghanistan about the U.S. under Taliban rule being welcomed in the war-torn country. Taliban’s 52-year-old new supreme leader Abdul Ghani Baradar demands that the U.S. fulfill its commitment to leave Afghanistan by Aug. 31 in exchange for the Taliban giving U.S. citizens safe passage out of the country. When the ISIS-K suicide bombing killed 13 U.S. soldiers and 170 Afghans Aug. 26, the Taliban failed to give the U.S. promised protection. No one knows whether the Taliban participated in the attack. But what’s known for sure is that that Taliban now controls Afghanistan, whether Romney likes it or not. No U.S. government can continue to support an Afghan government that does not have the support of the Afghan people. Romney can’t control whether the Ghani government made good use of U.S. resources. Obviously they did not.
Romney complained about the Trump administration agreeing to let Taliban and other prisoners out of jail. Mitt thinks some of the undesirables participated in the ISIS attacks that killed 13 U.S. soldiers. “These were the decisions that led to what you’re seeing and the danger that exist at the airport. This should not have happened,” Romney said. Mitt doesn’t get that whatever mishap happened at the airport, it was due to Biden’s lack of planning, panic at the last minute after Ghani fled the country. Had Joe taken four months to execute and orderly-and-safe transition the stampeded at Hamid Karzai airport would not have happened, leaving thousands of people ripe for an ISIS suicide bombing. Mitt knows that all was lost in Afghanistan, not due to Trump or Biden but due the rampant corruption in Ghani’s government together with infiltration of the Afghan military by the Taliban.
