Arizona Republican Rep. Eli Crane, a former Navy SEAL, condemned President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, highlighting that Vice President Kamala Harris was in favor of the move.
Crane highlighted four key consequences of the withdrawal, including the abandonment of $7 billion worth of U.S. military equipment, which is now reportedly being used by the Taliban and sold to fund terrorism.
Crane bluntly explained that Harris said “she was the last person in that room and, she did sign off, and I want to go through what she signed off on.”
@RepEliCrane said Kamala Harris touted being “the last person in the room” when Biden made his Afghanistan pull out decision, meaning she signed off on a plan that had 4 disastrous results. pic.twitter.com/Fx5SG6VFQ6
— Randy DeSoto (@RandyDeSoto) August 30, 2024
“She signed off on leaving $7 billion of U.S. taxpayer-funded equipment behind. It’s now being used to oppress some of our allies around the world, to kill some of our allies in that region,” Crane said.
“It’s also being sold and those profits are being used to fund terrorism around the world,” he added. “People don’t understand modern warfare and how important that is. I can tell you as somebody who participated in three wartime deployments in Iraq what a foolish maneuver that was because we own the night,” he said.
“Our enemies don’t like to fight us at night because we have night vision capability, and so by leaving that equipment behind you’re ensuring that our allies and our sons and daughters that have to go back into that region and fight some of our adversaries are going to be killed and come home in boxes because we left much of this equipment behind,” Crane added. “That’s exactly what Kamala Harris signed off on.”
“We also left behind intelligence, very crucial intelligence like biometrics that are now being used to hunt down those very allies that we left behind,” he said.
He also blameed Harris for agreeing to evacuate 120,000 Afghan people without properly vetting them. “They now came into this country. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know where they’re going, and we don’t know what their intentions are. Does that remind you of something else? Maybe our wide open southern border,” Crane said.
He expressed particular concern about the night vision equipment left behind, stating it compromises American soldiers’ safety.
Crane also mentioned that American allies were left vulnerable and that the vetting process for Afghan evacuees was inadequate.
Former Army veteran Jeannette Garcia shared her distress over the withdrawal, noting that Afghan interpreters who helped U.S. forces were left behind and urging support for Donald Trump.
