Democrats stick with Biden on Afghanistan despite criticisms of withdrawal

Many House Democrats continue to support President Joe Biden’s plan to exit Afghanistan despite criticisms of how the exit was handled.

Rep Cheri Bustos of Illinois, who is retiring at the end of the term, said the White House is doing everything it can to leave on time.

“They’re doing everything they can to get ‘em out and get Americans out and they have the sense of urgency to get the job done,” said Ms Bustos, a moderate Democrat who hails from a district that voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

But despite Mr Trump’s critiques of Mr Biden, Ms Bustos said it was still the right decision to end the war in Afghanistan.

“I think that we’ve been in a war for 20 years and President Biden did the right thing by making sure we’re calling an end to it,” she said.

Rep Ted Lieu of California, who serves in the air force reserves, said he supported the president’s plan and noted how it was initiated by the Trump administration.

Similarly, Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent that Mr Biden’s administration was hamstrung by the agreement made by Mr Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“Absolutely. President Trump and Secretary Mike Pompeo exclusively made agreements with the Taliban and the conditions of those agreements created a predicate that very much limited the current administration,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez said. “But all that is to say we needed to pull out.”

Mr Biden’s polling has taken a hit in light of the news from Afghanistan. A new poll from NBC News found that only 25 percent of Americans approve of his handling of Afghanistan. By comparison, 53 percent approve of Mr Biden’s handling of coronavirus, and 47 percent approve of his handling of the economy, though both are down from his numbers in the spring.

Still the same poll showed that 88 percent of Democrats approve of Mr Biden’s performance overall.

At the same time, some Democrats criticised the unraveling in Afghanistan. Rep Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who worked for the CIA for years as a Middle East analyst, said that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s leaving the nation as it fell did not portend well.

“I think when the president of the country leaves the country and announces on Facebook, it’s not a great start but I think obviously no one’s happy with how this is going,” Ms Slotkin said.

Ms Slotkin said there also needed to be a process for people to come to the United States through a system that wasn’t based on connections and added that Congress passed legislation to expand special immigrant visas for translators and others who assisted with the US mission in Afghanistan.

“If they want something, if they need something, they should speak up and ask,” Ms Slotkin said, adding that she continues to work on about 500 cases.

Similarly, some Republicans such as Kentucky Rep Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has criticised the war in Afghanistan, say Mr Biden’s performance has been lackluster.

“Getting out is the right thing to do but, I think you get the people out who don’t have guns before you take out the people who do have guns,” he said. “And I think the same hubris that led us to be there for 20 years is the hubris that led us to believe that the Afghan national security force and the president could keep the whole thing going long enough for us to get out safely.”