Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has joined the chorus of politicians and former government officials calling out President Joe Biden for the United States’ botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Speaking as a guest on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom on Tuesday morning, Cotton said that it is important to distinguish between the decision to withdraw and Biden’s execution of the U.S. withdrawal.
“I think you can distinguish between the decision to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, about which reasonable people disagree, and the way Joe Biden has executed that decision,” Cotton said. “It has been impotent and incompetent, and is a strategic catastrophe for America.”
Continuing, Cotton questioned Biden’s decision to withdraw troops so quickly and erratically, arguing that the president wanted the “political symbolism” of completing the process by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“Certainly, there is no reason why Joe Biden had to rush our troops and our contractors and other support personnel out of Afghanistan in the middle of the fighting season, aside from the fact that he wanted the political symbolism of having all Americans out by September 11. Now, the political symbolism will be the Taliban flag flying over what once was the U.S. Embassy on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. This is entirely a debacle of Joe Biden’s making.”
This is not the first time that Cotton has spoken out about the developing crisis in Afghanistan. As Taliban forces swept across the country on Sunday, Cotton urged Americans trapped there to contact his Senate office for help getting out.
If you’re an American stranded in Afghanistan, or know one who is, please contact my office immediately:
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) August 15, 2021
(501) 223-9081 or
evac@cotton.senate.gov
The situation is dire, but we’ll do everything in our power to help keep you informed and to help get you out.
The Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist military organization overthrown by the U.S. in December 2001, seized power in Kabul, Afghanistan’s national capital, on Sunday, Aug. 15. Just nine days earlier, Taliban forces held control of just one of the country’s 34 provincial capitals.
The staggering progress of the group, which now controls 26 Afghan provincial capitals, has widely been called a failure of the Biden administration and its intelligence capabilities.
Monday’s evacuation effort at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport was plagued by chaos, as seven people died after falling from a U.S. Air Force jet they had been clinging onto in a desperate attempt to escape Taliban rule.