Secretary Blinken to Testify on Afghanistan

By 

Jordan Sekulow

|
September 13, 2021

4 min read

Foreign Policy

A

A

After the Biden Administration’s disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will appear in two hearings – one by the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the other at the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee – about the way it was handled. The American people have many questions that demand answers. For instance, why was Secretary Blinken silent when President Biden pulled U.S. troops from Afghanistan when officials knew that it would be taken over by the Taliban immediately? And why were troops removed before evacuating state employees?

These are just some of the many questions that need to be answered. ACLJ Director of Policy Harry Hutchison mentioned more things that we need to find out in these hearings:

In addition, I would like the Secretary of State to explain whether he believes there was indeed an intelligence failure or, on the other hand, was there a failure of will by the Biden Administration to leave no American behind? He also needs to explain his rationale for not opposing the Bagram Air Force decision, basically to close that Air Force base before withdrawing, or better said, surrendering to the Taliban. In addition to all of that of course, we need to know how many Afghans were admitted to the United States without vetting for security purposes and without vetting for purposes of COVID infections. So, there are questions that need to be answered. My big fear is that Secretary of State Blinken will engage in his usual duplicity and try not to answer questions directly. I hope that Members of Congress will press him vigorously and demand real answers and also demand access to cables and other information which will either confirm Blinken’s claims or perhaps basically suggest he is fibbing once again.

Hopefully, Sec. Blinken does answer directly, but it doesn’t look likely after Republican staff have claimed they have an audio recording of him at the Hamptons shifting the blame of the outcome of the Afghanistan withdrawal to other senior Biden officials. When he is testifying face to face in front of Congress, he will have no one else to blame.

After all of the criticism the Biden Administration has faced over the withdrawal out of Afghanistan, President Biden tried to defend himself:

If you had told anybody that we were going to spend 300 million bucks a day for 20 years to try to unite the country after we got Bin Laden, after al-Qaeda was wiped out there – can al-Qaeda come back? Yeah. But guess what? It’s already back in other places. What’s the strategy? Every place where al-Qaeda is we’re going to invade and have troops stay there? Come on.

The idea that this decision was about money is ironic considering President Biden is asking for $3.5 trillion dollars right now for infrastructure. Harry Hutchison pointed out this strategy used by President Biden: 

Basically, it is a bait and switch approach by President Biden. He is pushing an initiative which would restructure so many areas of the country under this $3.5 trillion-dollar Green New Deal approach. And then he wants to restructure voting in the U.S. He is now slamming the state of Texas with respect to abortion. It goes on and on. He is a purpose without principle at least in my limited experience with him. . . . I think, because at his core, I think you will find a very empty suit. At the end of the day, I think the American people should make their own decisions, but they should not rely on President Biden’s analysis.

It’s very important to hold these leaders accountable for the choices they made. We know all the facts. We know that President Biden left Americans behind in a dangerous situation. We know we closed an airbase down before we were done using it. We know we were warned that the Taliban would take over before they actually did. So, now we need to know, how did this happen? We’ve already filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and we will be monitoring these hearings to find out the answer to all of these questions.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of Sec. of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming hearings.

Watch the full broadcast below.