Trump slams Biden administration as ‘worst in history’ for blaming him for Afghan withdrawal chaos
Donald Trump has labeled the Biden administration the “worst in history” for blaming him for the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
The former president launched a diatribe of furious Easter Sunday Truth Social posts, including one addressing White House reports released last week that blamed a lack of preparation by the Trump administration for the disastrous 2021 withdrawal.
“Can you believe the totally corrupt Biden Disinformation Administration is now trying to blame ‘TRUMP’ for their incompetent departure from Afghanistan,” he wrote.
“They are the worst in history, absolutely horrible people who always blame someone else for their mistakes and blunders – and there are many!”
Donald Trump of posts to his social media platform Truth Social on Easter Sunday in which he blasted the Biden administration for blaming the chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan on his administration. He is pictured after his April 4 arraignment
One Truth Social post addressed White House reports released last week that blamed a lack of preparation by the Trump administration for the disastrous 2021 withdrawal
The stream began on Sunday morning with a series of Trump signatures in capital letters.
“HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THOSE WHO ENDLESSLY DREAM OF DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT ABLE TO DREAM ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE,” he wrote.
In a subsequent message he simply wrote: ‘World War III’, but it was not immediately clear what was meant by that. In a follow-up, he wrote that the US will “go into World War III with these cruel, but very stupid people in charge.”
He also again mentioned the issue of election interference, accusing Democrats of planning to rig the upcoming 2024 election.
Trump also addressed the pending criminal charges he faces in New York, appearing to call Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg a “criminal prosecutor.”
Last week, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby defended the Biden government’s actions in Kabul during the withdrawal, after releasing a report detailing the reasons they believe it unfolded.
Kirby said the government was “proud” of the way US forces carried out the withdrawal, which led to the Taliban overthrowing the US-backed Afghan government.
While blaming the Trump administration for the disaster, he also denied there was any chaos at all.
“All this talk of chaos, I just don’t see it,” Kirby said in a White House briefing, referring to the withdrawal that culminated in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport that killed 13 Americans and some 170 others. came. “I just don’t believe in the whole chaos argument.”
Trump’s angry stream of messages on Easter Sunday began in the morning and continued throughout the day
The withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 culminated in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport that killed 13 Americans and about 170 others
In one post, Trump simply wrote, “World War III,” but it wasn’t immediately clear what that was referring to either
The report found that the Biden White House was implementing a Trump White House order to withdraw troops by the summer of 2021, but claimed the Trump team had left them with “no plans” for how the withdrawal of the 2,500 remaining troops were to be executed.
Trump had made an agreement to withdraw the troops by May 2021, but Biden promised to have them by September. The document said Biden had to implement the withdrawal Trump agreed to or the Taliban would begin attacks on US troops.
It also blamed Trump for the backlog in Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) processing, saying that the previous administration’s “contempt and even hostility toward our commitment to Afghan allies” led to some 18,000 waiting for the processing their visa.
It said Trump had “virtually stopped” SIV interviews despite making plans for withdrawal. In response to reports that the US left billions in equipment in Afghanistan when they left, Kirby said, “It’s their stuff… it belongs to the Afghans.”
“This idea is just ridiculous. That we left millions of dollars worth of stuff in Afghanistan – we didn’t!’ He compared it to the security aid the US has provided heavily to Ukraine – the US does not expect to get that equipment back.
Trump also responded to the document and Kirby’s comments on Thursday.
“These idiots in the White House, who are systematically destroying our country, spearheaded by the biggest idiot of them all, Hopeless Joe Biden, have a new disinformation game they are playing – blame ‘TRUMP’ for their grossly incompetent LEARNING in Afghanistan,” mused Trump on Truth Social, two days after he was indicted for hush money payments.
“I watched this disaster unfold, as did everyone else. I watched them take out the military FIRST, GIVE $85 billion in military equipment, allow the killing of our soldiers and leave the Americans behind. Biden is responsible, no one else!’ added the ex-president.
The $85 billion is the total amount the US has given to the Afghan army and police. A special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction said in a report that the amount is closer to $7 billion.
SIGAR said the Pentagon told the group that “$7.2 billion worth of aircraft, guns, vehicles, munitions and specialized equipment such as night vision goggles and biometric devices are left.”
Poor planning by the US military before the withdrawal from Afghanistan and a lack of oversight contributed to the government’s rapid collapse when the Taliban invaded the country in August 2021, according to a damning watchdog report.
The withdrawal was “sudden and uncoordinated,” and left war-ravaged locals with the impression that the US was “simply handing over Afghanistan to a waiting Taliban government,” the report continues. Members of the Taliban celebrate a victory in March 2020
The White House reiterated in the document that no one expected Kabul to fall under Taliban control so quickly, but said it learned from the incident to communicate early and aggressively about the security risks to Americans and allies who may want to leave.
“As the security situation in Afghanistan worsened over the summer, the government struggled with the tension between emphasizing growing warning signs of a possible collapse and undermining confidence in the government of Afghanistan and the will of the Afghan armed forces,” the document said. .
“In a destabilizing security environment, we are now opting for aggressive communication about risks. We did this before Russia invaded Ukraine.’
At Thursday’s briefing, Kirby would not say whether shots would be fired.
“Who gets fired for this?” asked Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy. Kirby replied that its “purpose is not to be accountable”.
CBS’s Ed O’Keefe hammered at the top of the briefing on Kirby and the White House about how the Afghanistan document was released.
Reporters got it under embargo — meaning they couldn’t publish the content immediately — about 20 minutes before Kirby and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre appeared in the briefing.
When they appeared and the embargo was lifted, the Bidens left the White House two hours early for their Easter vacation at Camp David.
O’Keefe called the White House move the “modern big holiday news dump.”
“You’re putting this out at the start of the holiday season and after months of requests from Republicans and the wider public,” O’Keefe said.
He also asked, “Is this all we’re getting?”