x

Politics

Trump is Expected to Tie Harris to Chaotic Afghanistan War Withdrawal on 3rd Anniversary of Attack

August 26, 2024

NEW YORK – Former President Donald Trump on Monday is expected to tie Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic Afghanistan War withdrawal on the third anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed 13 service members.

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is expected to visit Arlington National Cemetery to pay his respects to the service members killed in the bombing outside the Kabul airport. Trump will then go to Michigan to address the National Guard Association of the United States conference.

Monday marks three years since the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport, which killed 13 American service members and more than 100 Afghans. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Trump has been zeroing in on Harris, now the Democratic presidential nominee, and her roles in foreign policy decisions. He specifically highlights the vice president’s statements that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision on Afghanistan.

“She bragged that she would be the last person in the room, and she was. She was the last person in the room with Biden when the two of them decided to pull the troops out of Afghanistan,” he said last week in a North Carolina rally. “She had the final vote. She had the final say, and she was all for it.”

The relatives of some of the 13 American service members who were killed appeared on stage at the Republican National Convention last month, saying Biden had never publicly named their loved ones. The display was an implicit response to allegations that Trump doesn’t respect veterans and had previously referred to slain World War II soldiers as suckers and losers — accusations denied by Trump.

Under Trump, the United States signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that was aimed at ending America’s longest war and bringing U.S. troops home. Biden later pointed to that agreement as he sought to deflect blame for the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan, saying it bound him to withdraw troops and set the stage for the chaos that engulfed the country.

A Biden administration review of the withdrawal acknowledged that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but attributed the delays to the Afghan government and military, and to U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.

The top two U.S. generals who oversaw the evacuation said the administration inadequately planned for the withdrawal. The nation’s top-ranking military officer at the time, then-Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, told lawmakers earlier this year he had urged Biden to keep a residual force of 2,500 forces to give backup. Instead, Biden decided to keep a much smaller force of 650 that would be limited to securing the U.S. embassy.

RELATED

herald

Top Stories

Columnists

A pregnant woman was driving in the HOV lane near Dallas.

General News

NEW YORK – Meropi Kyriacou, the new Principal of The Cathedral School in Manhattan, was honored as The National Herald’s Educator of the Year.

Video

Spider Lovers Scurry to Colorado Town in Search of Mating Tarantulas and Community

LA JUNTA, Colo. (AP) — Love is in the air on the Colorado plains — the kind that makes your heart beat a bit faster, quickens your step and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

NEW YORK - At this year’s annual International Opera Awards, a marquee event in opera, which took place on October 2 at the famous home of the Bavarian State Opera (Bayerische Staatsoper) in Munich, SNF was recognized for its longstanding and pivotal support to the Greek National Opera (GNO), both through the creation of its new home at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) and through enduring support to strengthen its artistic outreach.

I accepted Peter (Panayotis) Tiboris’ proposal that I write his biography because I was intrigued by his life story.

Ted Sarandos’ incredible success story is the Hollywood dream that many of us hope to reach but very few achieve.

espa

Enter your email address to subscribe

Provide your email address to subscribe. For e.g. [email protected]

You may unsubscribe at any time using the link in our newsletter.