(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- As Americans watch the disaster in Afghanistan unfold, both the Senate and the House are considering hearings to determine just what went wrong. Rhode Island Democrat Senator Jack Reed, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee has called for hearings at some later date to find out how this withdrawal went so terribly wrong. However, Reed believes right now the focus should be on evacuations.
In a statement issued late Monday, Reed said that hearings on Afghanistan should take place at the appropriate time, but at this moment the focus should be squarely on “safely evacuating US citizens and Afghans who aided us.”
Reed expressed deep concern about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Afghanistan, offering up some of his early theories of what might have gone wrong there. Among his suggested problems were the “disastrous pivot” to war in Iraq, the lack of any effective policy to deal with “a duplicitous Pakistan,” the mission-creep from counter-terrorism, and the inability to “build an effective Afghan government and security forces.”
Naturally, Reed also blamed the Trump administration’s Doha agreement, which Reed claimed compounded the problem. He pointed to intelligence failures as well as failures in diplomacy, and what Reed described as “a lack of imagination” as the US “transitioned military forces from the country.”
Over in the House, Speaker Pelosi said this week that the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hear testimony from the “highest level” officials in the Biden administration – including Secretary of State Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin. Pelosi told KPIX in San Francisco that these hearings will begin early next week. At the same time, the Speaker praised President Biden for his “strong and decisive” action in Afghanistan. Which only goes to show that her grip on reality is as tenuous as President Biden’s.
House Republicans, meanwhile, are doing what they always do – writing a sternly-worded letter.
This week, Republicans Mike McCaul, Devin Nunes and Mike Rogers sent a letter to President Biden demanding answers for the “disaster that is now unfolding” in Afghanistan.
