OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Joe Biden’s removal of the United State military from Afghanistan has been one of, if not the, most controversial decisions of his presidency and he has faced criticism from a variety of places, including fellow Democrats.
Biden has become more isolated in not only his decision to bring the troops home, which is something many people including Donald Trump agreed with, but the manner in which the mission is going, The Hill reported.
“I am bewildered and frustrated and, privately talking to a lot of House Democrats, they feel the same thing,” a Democratic member of Congress said anonymously to The Hill.
The unnamed member of the House expressed support for the decision to bring home the troops but was furious at the execution of the operation.
“The scenes are just brutal and there is no excuse for just how badly State or the Defense Department or both completely bungled the evacuations and getting folks out. Someone was really asleep at the switch,” they said.
And while they expressed optimism for the 2022 midterm elections they said “I do want to know who was responsible. Where was the ball dropped? Because that person needs to be held accountable. At least one person, or a group of people, screwed up so bad that it’s fireable.”
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Democrat New York Rep. Gregory Meeks said that he would hold hearings on what has happened in Afghanistan.
He said wants Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin both to testify.
“It is imperative that the administration provide the American people and Congress transparency about its Afghanistan strategy,” he said.
Democrat Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts called the situation a “disaster” in a press release.
“To say that today is anything short of a disaster would be dishonest. Worse, it was avoidable. The time to debate whether we stay in Afghanistan has passed, but there is still time to debate how we manage our retreat. For months, I have been calling on the Administration to evacuate our allies immediately—not to wait for paperwork, for shaky agreements with third countries, or for time to make it look more ‘orderly,’” he said on Sunday.
“While I am proud that a strong, bipartisan majority in Congress voted to expand the Special Immigrant Visa program in support of our Afghan friends, my worst fear has been realized: That ultimately this effort would distract from what is truly needed, an immediate evacuation. The fact that, at this hour, we have not even secured the civilian half of Kabul Airport is a testament to our moral and operational failure. We need to rectify this immediately. America and our allies must drop the onerous visa requirements where a typo can condemn an ally to torture and death, and the military must continue the evacuation for as long as it takes,” he said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman and Democrat New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez also expressed his disappointment as he placed some of the blame on Trump.
“The wholly inadequate agreement the Trump administration made with the Taliban did not get commitments for the Taliban to break ties with Al Qaeda, nor did it account for the day after our withdrawal,” he said.
“In implementing this flawed plan, I am disappointed that the Biden administration clearly did not accurately assess the implications of a rapid U.S. withdrawal. We are now witnessing the horrifying results of many years of policy and intelligence failures,” he said.
And some noticed that in his first speech about the situation on Monday Biden said he took responsibility for what has happened during the Afghanistan evacuation but appeared to blame others.
“In his speech to the nation, Biden said the buck stops here. But then he spread bucks out to pretty much everyone else but himself,” Boston University a professor emeritus Tobe Berkovitz said.
