Rep. Gaetz criticizes Biden Administration's handling of Afghanistan

Northwest Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz released a statement Monday morning regarding the Taliban capture of Kabul.

At least seven people are dead amid chaos at the Kabul airport, including some who fell from a departing U.S. military transport jet.

Rep. Gaetz's statement reads, in part:

Just as President Biden has failed our country on COVID, at the border and economically – he has failed in Afghanistan. Since he was on vacation, I don’t know if he even noticed. We did.

The decision to withdraw was correct. I made the full case here. The strategy and tactics, horrific and incompetent.

The fundamental error was ever believing that the Afghan ‘government’ and ‘military’ would ever fight for or win anything. They fled the country with whatever they could steal at the first whiff of the Taliban. It wasn’t exactly Valley Forge, Concord or Lexington. They were thugs and thieves, not patriots.

Because the Biden Administration believed in the legitimacy of an illegitimate Afghan Government, the right precautions were not taken to ensure that military equipment, paid for by the U.S. Taxpayer, did not fall into the hands of the Taliban or Iran. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened.

The Taliban swept into Kabul on Sunday after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, bringing an end to a two-decade campaign in which the U.S. and its allies had tried to transform Afghanistan. The country's Western-trained security forces collapsed or fled, ahead of the planned withdrawal of the last American troops at the end of the month.

President Biden has been at the Camp David presidential retreat since Friday.

Biden announced Monday that he will return to the White House and deliver remarks on the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan.

Gaetz's statement goes on to say:

Twenty years toiling in Afghanistan has been a mistaken exercise in American nation building. We should learn this lesson. We should cherish and love our country enough to appreciate that the Cheney-istas cannot replicate it in Central Asian caves with any amount of American treasure or blood.

I will be leading the fight in Congress to put America First in all we do. We must build the strongest military in the world – capable of winning any battle and vanquishing any foe. We must commit to use it sparingly, only when in the direct national interest of our countrymen, not to settle disputes with barbaric tribes oceans away,