President Joe Biden’s long history in politics has come back to bite him countless times, but a clip from the 2008 presidential election seems almost prophetic.
During the 2008 Democratic primaries, Biden, who was a senator from Delaware at the time, made comments about withdrawing American troops from Iraq while speaking at a campaign event in Iowa in August 2007.
“[I]t makes a big difference to tell the American people the truth about what our options are in ending this war. If tomorrow, the order goes out — I’m president of the United States and I issue an order, ‘End the war today, begin to withdraw all American troops’, it will take a year to get all the American troops out,” Biden said in the clip from CSPAN.
“Do you hear me now? That’s the truth. It will take a year to get them physically out. Now if you leave all the equipment behind, you might be able to do it in seven months, and you leave those billions of dollars of weapons behind, I promise they’re gonna be used against your grandchild and mine someday.”
It should be obvious based on the date and context of the 2008 race, but in this clip going around conservative Twitter and shared by senators and members of Congress, Biden is talking about Iraq not Afghanistan. https://t.co/IwpG864BqM
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) November 8, 2021
Fast forward to 2021, when the Biden administration decided to pull troops from Afghanistan.
In April, he ordered troops to be fully withdrawn on Sept. 11, which is far less than the year he outlined in his Iraq plan in order to carefully secure all soldiers and weapons.
The execution of the removal came to fruition in August, when the Taliban swiftly took over land that was once secured by the Afghan National Forces and the United States military.
The U.S. mistakenly trusted the Afghan forces to protect crucial weapons, ranging from helicopters to firearms. Sadly, those allies barely were able to hold up against the Taliban’s military might, giving our enemies control of that precious military equipment.
Iran, an American adversary, likely purchased humvees and tools from the Taliban, the National Interest reported.
But that’s only the beginning, as some of those weapons left behind are now ending up for sale in Afghanistan, where they are likely to end up in the hands of bad actors, according to the New York Times.
As these weapons presumably contain unique technology and designs that result from U.S. military innovation, it’s the foreign policy equivalent of reading somebody else’s diary.
Biden understood the consequences of a careless withdrawal from Iraq, but he clearly forgot his correct insight from 14 years ago.
Instead, his military strategy resulted in the U.S. becoming more vulnerable, a tragedy at the Kabul airport and ongoing chaos in Afghanistan.
Just watch. 9 years old. https://t.co/Bn7EOeBsma
— heather nauert (@HeatherNauert) November 6, 2021
His prediction did end up coming true overseas — except it wasn’t in Iraq, and Biden’s administration was responsible.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
