‘F**k that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.’
According to the Daily Mail, Biden has wanted to pull out of Afghanistan for a long time, reporting that, “The rapid US withdrawal from Afghanistan that has left the gate open for the Taliban to surge to power may come as a surprise to some, but President Biden has been in favor of pulling out for years.”
Daily Mail reports, Despite widespread claims that the intelligence community knew Kabul could fall to the Taliban within weeks if the US quickly withdrew the bulk of its military assets, Biden went over the heads of his military advisors and oversaw a hasty evacuation of US personnel.
Holbrooke with former Afghan president Hamid Karzai in 2009
In 2010, Biden reportedly told Richard Holbrooke, then Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that the US had to leave Afghanistan regardless of the cost for the Afghan people.
According to his (Holbrook’s) diary, much of which was turned over to his official biographer George Packer following his death, Biden made his ruthless comparison between pulling out of Afghanistan and the withdrawal of US troops from Southeast Asia just months before Holbrooke died (in 2010).
The diary painted Biden as one of the most vocal critics of the war in Afghanistan and a skeptic of America’s commitment to the Afghan people.
According to Holbrooke, when Biden was asked about America’s obligation to maintain their presence in Afghanistan to protect vulnerable civilians, he scornfully replied by referencing the US exit from southeast Asia in 1973.
‘F**k that, we don’t have to worry about that. We did it in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger got away with it.’
On Monday Biden defended his decision to bring home American troops saying, “I am president of the United States of America and the buck stops with me.”
Then he blamed Afghan leaders for allowing their country to collapse, saying, “‘The truth is – this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan’s political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.”
Last month Biden dismissed concerns that the Taliban might return to power in the absence of American troops saying the Afghans had the advantage over the Taliban in men and weapons, and claiming “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
