At Alabama rally, Trump blasts Biden for 'major failure' in Afghanistan
Aug 22, 2021
Alabama [US], August 22 : At a massive rally in COVID-19 hit Alabama, former US President Donald Trump ripped into his successor Joe Biden for the Kabul crisis, saying that recent developments in Afghanistan are a "major failure" of the current US administration's foreign policy.
Addressing a 'Save America' rally in Cullman, Trump on Saturday said that the situation in Afghanistan will go down as "one of the greatest embarrassments" and the "greatest foreign policy humiliation" in the history of the US, Sputnik reported.
Trump's rally comes despite Cullman City Council declared a state of emergency in the city due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases.
Trump accused US President Joe Biden of surrendering the US military bases in Afghanistan, stressing that American troops are leaving behind USD 83 billion dollars worth of military equipment.
"This will go down as one of the great military defeats of all time," Trump said, calling the troop withdrawal a "total surrender" and a "gross incompetence by a nation's leader," Trump emphasized that under his presidency, this would never have happened.
The former President told the massive crowd gathered in the deep-red state that "this would have never happened if I was president."
US is evacuating its citizens and Afghans who helped US forces in the last two decades from Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban on August 15.
As Afghanistan plunged into chaos, Biden was criticised for hasty withdrawal from the war-torn country, which led to the collapse of the country's government.
Trump agreed to a full military withdrawal by May 1 of this year. The Biden administration has blamed Trump for the timeline leading to the botched withdrawal.
Biden extended the deadline to September 11 and then pledged to have all US troops out by August 31.
Trump said he was tough in the negotiations and told warned the Taliban: 'If anything happens we will reign terror upon you.'
'Don't touch our American citizens,' Trump said he told the Taliban leader. 'Don't touch our American citizens.'
