Shameful failure: Mitch McConnell lashes out at Joe Biden on Afghan pullout

US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has lashed out at the Joe Biden administration for its hurried exit from Afghanistan as the Taliban, the group the US deposed after invading the country in 2001, regained control of the capital Kabul on Sunday.

“The Biden Administration’s botched exit from Afghanistan including the frantic evacuation of Americans and vulnerable Afghans from Kabul is a shameful failure of American leadership. The United States had the capacity to avoid this disaster,” McConnell tweeted.

  A whopping $89 billion was spent on training the Afghan army, according to Reuters. But it took the Taliban a little more than a month to brush it aside. They have seized every major city in Afghanistan with little to no resistance from the army. Some soldiers abandoned their posts and others reached agreements with the Taliban and handed over their weapons and equipment. 

On top of that, the US did not offer any help as it hurriedly pulled out its troops as President Biden vowed to end the two-decade-old war, which he said was costing America dearly. He had initially set the deadline of September 11 as the date of final pullout but then preponed it to August 31. Republicans have criticised the decision of the federal government as hasty. 

The Taliban launched a blitz against the Afghan army and within days, took control of the country even before the date of the final US withdrawal had passed. The US-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, leaving the Taliban in-charge