A top former US Marine has slammed the withdrawal of Afghanistan by US troops calling it a “complete disaster.”
Captain Rye Barcott served five years on active duty in the Marine Corps, being deployed to Bosnia, the Horn of Africa, and Iraq.
Now he has criticised the US Government’s withdrawal from Afghanistan which led to scenes of violence, including suicide attacks at Kabul’s airport which killed 170 Afghans and 13 US soldiers.
US House of Representatives Republicans released a long-awaited report earlier this month President Joe Biden’s administration for failures surrounding the withdrawal, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken subpoenaed to appear before a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.
Captain Barcott has criticised the government’s withdrawal
WikiCommons/GBNews
Captain Barcott told GB News: “One thing is very clear, which is that the evacuation from Afghanistan was a complete disaster. I mean, it’s, it’s kind of unfathomable even to think through about how we, we not only left billions of dollars of equipment behind, but also people behind. It just should not have happened.
“I’m glad that there’s a bipartisan Afghan war commission that we helped get off the ground. It’s co-chaired by the Democratic co-chair of the Four Country caucus, this bipartisan caucus of vets in the house, Jason Crow.
“They’re just basically saying, okay, let’s actually look at the facts here. Take it out of the political orbit for a moment and say we were in Afghanistan for 20 years, 20 years. Like, what went wrong? Why didn’t we learn from the history?
“You know, they call [Afghanistan] the graveyard of empires for a reason. Why didn’t we learn from that history? Why don’t we learn more from from Vietnam, which all precipitated this, this, this hasty, hasty withdrawal.”
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Taliban forces patrol at a runway a day after US troops withdrawal from Hamid Karzai International Airport
Reuters
However, Captain Barcott was quick to rule out either the Biden or Trump administrations as being the sole reason behind the disaster.
He said: “I do not think that it is accurate to say that our failures in Afghanistan were the result of any one particular administration. The blame in this case does go around. I mean, for 20 it’s finger pointing. That’s all it is. I mean, it just feels childish, you know, like, can we get back to actual facts and and serious thinking.
“You know what is also a national embarrassment, the fact that we have not passed the Afghan Adjustment Act. There are 80,000 Afghans, many of them who served with us as our interpreters. The most dangerous job, next to explosive ordinance disposal, were our interpreters.
“They often didn’t go back home as we did in the Marines after six months or after a year in the army. They often stayed four years, many times, their families were often to also targeted.
“They played essential roles. They were our partners, and we left thousands behind. The 80,000 that got to the United States, half of them are in a legal limbo for years now.”
Taliban soldiers stand in front of a sign at the international airport in Kabul
Reuters
The report by House of Representitive Republicans released, on September 9 contends that the Biden administration made its decision to evacuate noncombatants far too late, formally ordering it only on August 16.
It also accused the administration of failing to communicate between departments in Washington and among officials in Afghanistan, and botched the paperwork for the departure of Afghan civilians eligible to leave the country.
On August 26, 2021, as US forces were trying to help Americans and Afghans flee as the Islamist Taliban movement took control of the country, a suicide attack at the Abbey Gate entrance to Kabul’s airport killed 13 Americans.
Former President Donald Trump attacked Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the exit from Afghanistan during campaign appearances, blaming them personally for the deaths at Abbey Gate.
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