Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R) said Monday that he knows “for a fact” U.S. Military generals gave President Joe Biden good advice on the withdrawal efforts in Afghanistan that POTUS just did not take. It’s “reasonable,” the Republican noted, to now ask why those generals didn’t fight harder against the Biden administration’s decisions, or even resign in protest.
“I think if there’s blame to go around, it’s that, maybe the generals didn’t stand up enough to Joe Biden,” Crenshaw told radio host Brian Kilmeade, discussing the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. “I know for a fact they gave him the right advice and he decided not to take it.”
“It’s a reasonable criticism: ‘Well, why didn’t you resign in protest?’ That’s a reasonable criticism, and I’d like to hear an explanation to that, perhaps,” Crenshaw added.
The Texas representative also blasted the State Department for echoing dubious claims and talking points from the Biden administration, noting that the department “has a lot to answer for.”
“You know, when I hear from Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, they tend to repeat the lies of the administration more than most. And I think the State Department has a lot to answer for on this,” he said.
Further, Crenshaw explained that “neo-evacuations,” or evacuations without a combatant operation, are typically very well planned out. The Biden administration “failed to adhere to procedures” of such an evac, the lawmaker said.
“There are certain tripwires also that would initiate such procedures. As we understand it, the embassy under this ambassador’s leadership just failed to notice and failed to adhere to those procedures,” Crenshaw explained, according to Fox News, adding, “So they were behind the eight ball the entire time.”
“I think the current ambassador to Afghanistan, again, under both administrations is a complete disaster. The State Department has been a complete disaster in all of this,” Crenshaw added.
A former Navy SEAL who served five deployments overseas, Crenshaw argued earlier this month, in The Wall Street Journal, that Biden’s withdrawal was a disastrous and dangerous move with short-term and long-term effects.
In the piece, Crenshaw also criticized the “no more endless wars” crowd.
“They prefer to live in a dream world rather than face the reality that our enemies are ideologically opposed to Western civilization and will gladly stage another 9/11 if they have the opportunity and means,” he wrote.
The Texas lawmaker argued, “There are many options between nation building and giving up, and we had found a good one in Afghanistan before President Biden abandoned it.”
There’s a difference “between wasteful nation building and a small residual force that conducts occasional counterterror operations,” Crenshaw said. When that isn’t understood, “many Americans hear that there is a single soldier on the ground in Afghanistan, they interpret it to mean ‘nation building’ and ‘world police.'”
“That’s wrong,” the Republican asserted. “There are a lot of foreign policy options between nation building and giving up. We found the proper balance in recent years—maintaining a small force that propped up the Afghan government while also giving us the capability to strike at Taliban and other terrorist networks as needed.”
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