Don Bacon’s Flip Flip On Afghanistan
Earlier this year, President Joe Biden announced that after 20 years, U.S. troops would be withdrawing from Afghanistan. Subsequent to that announcement, the Taliban launched an offensive that has overthrown the government and captured Kabul.
The ever opportunistic and hyper-partisan D.C. Republicans were quick to falsely blame this collapse on Biden. Don Bacon posted about a “colossal disaster” and compared the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. (Does Bacon want to re-invade Iraq? Do tell.) Chicken Hawks Deb Fischer, Ben Sasse and Jeff Fortenberry joined Don Bacon in supporting a forever war in Afghanistan.
Fischer, Sasse, Fortenberry and Bacon didn’t tell us what their strategy was for winning the war. Apparently, they just want to double down on failure. Moreover, they didn’t tell us how they would pay for their war. Wars are expensive. The Afghan conflict has already cost the taxpayers $2 trillion. Just imagine if we had invested that $2 trillion in our people and infrastructure.
Don Bacon didn’t mention that he supported Trump’s plan to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. On February 29, 2020, the Trump Administration signed an agreement with the Taliban, under which the U.S. agreed to withdraw all of its force within 14 months.
The Politico website reported on March 3, 2020, that Bacon supported Trump’s plan. Bacon said: “I’m going to support it but mainly because it has a window of time that we can put the breaks on it, but I’m not ringing the bells or blowing the trumpets on this thing because I do not trust these guys.”
The Hill website on the same date also indicated that Bacon supported the Trump deal. In this piece, Bacon was quoted as saying that he “applauds the effort” and that the “deal’s timeline provides room to see if it’s effective.”
Out of fairness to Bacon, he came on my twitter account and claimed that he had his name on an amendment in last year’s NDAA opposing the Trump deal, and said he was on record multiple times criticizing it. Bacon didn’t provide any evidence or links to substantiate his claims, though.
Biden is implementing Trump’s Afghanistan policy. Why did Bacon change his mind in 2021? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Trump is a Republican and Biden is a Democrat.
A number of experts on both sides of the aisle posted in support of Biden’s decision to end the U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan.
Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted: “Staying one more year means we stay forever. Because if twenty years of laborious training and equipping of the Afghan security forces had this little impact on their ability to fight, then another 50 years won’t change anything.”
Former Representative Justin Amash (R-MI): “The Taliban’s rapid gains in Afghanistan underscore the futility of permanent occupation. The United States wasn’t able to meaningfully shape circumstances through 20 years of war. We’d have seen the same results had we pulled out 15 years ago or 15 years from now. End the wars. “
Veteran, former Republican and former Trump supporter David Weismann: “After 20 prolonged years, the ANA should have learned how to defend against the Taliban, especially when they have more forces. Destroying the Taliban was never a mission; training the ANA and capturing Osama bin Laden was, and we did that. This is why I continue to support President Biden’s decision to withdraw soldiers from Afghanistan. The mission has been accomplished, and the U.S. shouldn’t suffer anymore because a country is unwilling to defend itself. “
I’ve seen a number of comparisons between the collapse of the U.S. backed Afghan government and the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. It makes me wonder if the Republicans making those comparisons believe the U.S. should have stayed longer in Vietnam, and why?
The Republicans’ criticism of Biden is simply disingenuous since he inherited a mess in Afghanistan. It wasn’t Biden’s failure — this failure is on the Afghans. The government’s troops substantially outnumbered the Taliban and they folded like a cheap suit. We gave Afghanistan a chance to be a successful country for 20 years and they blew it.
My message for Don Bacon and the Chicken Hawks is that if they support a war, they need to support a tax increase to support their war and a draft. It’s all too easy to support a war that’s funded with borrowed money and fought by somebody else’s kids. That’s why the U.S. stayed involved in Iraq and Afghanistan for too long.
Don Bacon is a hyper partisan Republican and an ardent Trump supporter. The incumbent Nebraska CD-02 member of Congress is running on a phony platform of bi-partisanship and civility. Bacon is a loyal GOP party solider and he has a history of running deeply dishonest and vicious re-election campaigns.
Bacon is one of the most vulnerable GOP House incumbents in the 2022 cycle because Joe Biden carried CD-02 by a 52% to 45% margin in 2020. Both Tony Vargas and Alisha Shelton have thrown their hat in the ring. Let’s repeal Don Bacon and replace him with a new member of the U.S. House who will represent the people — not Donald Trump or the GOP billionaire donor class. Let’s get it done!