Many Republicans, notably Rep. Don Bacon, have heaped criticism on the Biden Administration for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan — a move, that included the release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, was brokered by former President Trump.
Bacon can’t find bi-partisan solutions or agree with Biden because his entire goal is to pretend he is a moderate while masking who he really is — a Republican who engages in finger-pointing rather than offering solutions. In the end, Bacon loves it both ways because he can flip and flop around pretending to be whatever he thinks is popular.
It is worth noting that Bacon supported Trump’s negotiation of a deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 1. Yet Bacon recently wrote an op-ed in the Omaha World-Herald the Biden Administration “must own the colossal catastrophe” in Afghanistan.
Voters don’t want the finger-pointing. Voters want solutions. Biden got more than 124,000 people — Americans, allies and Afghan refugees — to safety in the course of 17 days in the largest airlift in U.S. history.
Leaving by the Aug. 31 deadline was not arbitrary. It was designed to save American lives.
The president’s predecessor signed an agreement with the Taliban that left this Administration with a choice: either honor the commitment and leave Afghanistan or commit thousands of more troops and go back to war. The president was not for extending a forever war, nor was he for extending a forever exit.
As Dan Pfeiffer, who was a top advisor to President Obama, recently noted in his newsletter: “Within hours of the fall of Kabul, for Trump aid Stephen Miller, the white supremacist whose very existence invalidated the theory, was pushing Republicans to rally against Biden Administration efforts to resettle Afghan refugees.”
Tucker Carlson took to the airwaves to fearmonger:
“If history is any guide, and it’s always a guide, we will see many refugees from Afghanistan resettle in our country in the coming months, probably in your neighborhood. And over the next decade, that number may swell to the millions. So first we invade, and then we are invaded. It is always the same.”
As expected, Bacon is now pointing the finger about the dangers of Taliban prisoners. He was silent when Trump signed this deal.
According to The New York Times, “former President Donald J. Trump and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader — have sought to fold the issue of Afghan refugees into the anti-immigrant stance of the party’s far right. They are criticizing Mr. Biden not simply for leaving the Afghans behind, but for opening the United States up to what they characterized as dangerous foreigners.”
Alas, Bacon has not pushed back on any of that tripe. He’s too busy finger-pointing. Bacon is too busy trying to have it both ways.
