Former US President Donald Trump dropped several truth bombs in a candid interview with Fox News on the Taliban and Afghanistan.
In the live-streamed interview, Trump claimed that ‘nobody has handled a withdrawal worse than (Joe) Biden.’ Ripping apart Biden’s (non-existent) exit strategy from Afghanistan, Trump revealed that all his efforts and deals had gone down the drain.
“Mike Pompeo had worked on a great deal (with the Taliban). I spoke with the head of the Taliban on numerous occasions and said upfront if anything bad happens to Americans or if you ever come to our land, we will hit you bad,” said Trump in the interview while talking about his ‘condition-based’ deal with the Talib.
‘There is no plan’
Trump lambasted Biden for having no plan in place for the exit. “We were going to take out our military last. We would have first got out our citizens, then our military equipment, and then our military,” said Trump when asked how he would have handled the withdrawal of US from Afghanistan.
Trump listing his achievements said that not one American soldier had lost his life in the past one and half years in Afghanistan. He also revealed that the country was spending a whopping $42 billion a year defending the Afghans but got nothing in return.
#TrumpWasRight
— Bram Christiaens (Morpheus Pharmaceuticals 💊) (@Br_Christiaens) August 19, 2021
The people have to come out first and the military stays last.
We bribed the Afghan soldiers to fight, once we left they stopped fighting!
The Taliban now has brand new Black Hawk Helicopters and Army Tanks, state of the art missiles etc.
WE WANT TRUMP BACK! pic.twitter.com/RJ90PXJqzO
Trump highlighted how the hasty withdrawal of US forces has left behind world-class military equipment, heavy vehicles and choppers for the Taliban to use. He also stated that all those equipment will now fall into enemy hands. As per a report in Reuters, the Taliban has now taken control over more than 2,000 armoured vehicles, including US Humvees, up to 40 aircraft including UH-60 Black Hawks, scout attack helicopters, and ScanEagle military drones, apart from arms and ammunition.
‘Fighting for paychecks’
Divulging shocking bits of information, the outspoken politician nonchalantly disclosed that the Afghan soldiers were, in fact, fighting the Taliban only for the paycheck. “Our country was paying them a fortune to fight the Taliban,” said Trump.
“The Afghans were the highest-paid military and we were making them fight for the paychecks,” Trump said, adding that when the US stopped paying them, they just stopped fighting.
“40,000 Americans are potential hostages”
The former president reiterated his worry that close to 40,000 Americans have been abandoned in Afghanistan with no plan to bring them back. “They are potential hostages,” exclaimed Trump.
He also felt sorry for the Afghans who helped the US in the fight against the Taliban but are now left high and dry.
“We have the greatest military in the world but we are giving them a very bad reputation,” said Trump during the interview.
Meanwhile, due to unprecedented pressure and bad press, POTUS Joe Biden has been forced to made amendments to his “vacation plans.” As per an AP report, president Biden was found at an official Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland when the Afghanistan government collapsed.
Presently, as the US administration urged the American citizens stuck in Afghanistan to take ‘shelter in place’ and just ‘write’ to the US administration for rescue, Biden had plans to head to his Delaware home on Friday.
The schedule has been deferred but the fate of Americans in Afghanistan continues to be in the dark.
Since August 15, the day the Taliban took over Kabul, thousands of Afghans have been flocking to the Hamid Karzai airport, creating chaotic situations and unfortunate incidents causing death.
