Day: May 1, 2024

The Biden administration gave the Taliban terror group a “green light” to seize control of Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul, in mid-August 2021, setting the stage for the terror group to retake control of the country amid America’s botched withdrawal, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, said in an interview obtained by the Free Beacon that U.S. military leaders rejected a Taliban offer to have the United States provide security for Kabul during an August 15, 2021, meeting with Taliban leaders in Qatar, which came as American officials were scrambling to pull troops and personnel out of the country. This decision was seen as a “green light” for the Taliban to take control of the city.

Khalilzad’s disclosures, which are previously unreported, were made during closed-door testimony conducted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee as part of its years-long investigation into the Biden administration’s botched Afghanistan evacuation. A transcript of Khalilzad’s interview, which was conducted in November 2023, was released in full exclusively to the Free Beacon.

When asked about that pivotal 2021 meeting in Qatar, which included Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who led U.S. Central Command at the time, Khalilzad said the Biden administration made a military decision to relinquish control over most of Kabul. This decision resulted in the United States controlling only a very narrow piece of the city that included its embassy compound and the airport—the site of a terror attack that later killed a dozen U.S. service members.

“It sounds like a green light for the Taliban to come and take over most of Kabul,” an interviewer from the committee’s Republican side said to Khalilzad as the witness recounted the meeting.

“I think that’s clear,” Khalilzad responded.

The interview paints the clearest picture to date of hurried U.S. meetings with the Taliban as Afghanistan devolved into chaos amid the Biden administration’s exit from the country. Khalilzad, who served as the central U.S. interlocutor with the Taliban, said under questioning that the State Department had virtually no contingency plan in place to deal with a crumbling security situation on the ground, which likely contributed to the terror attack at the Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate.

Both the State Department and Khalilzad assumed the Afghan government would not collapse so quickly once the United States exited the country and developed no plan to deal with that eventuality. Khalilzad predicted the Afghan government could hold its own against the Taliban for at least two years and did not change his opinion on the matter until August 2021, when the terror group was already assuming control.

“The dominant assumption that was, I think, in the government, based on assessments that were being made, was that the [Afghan] government won’t collapse that quickly,” Khalilzad said. “That was the estimate that guided things and was my own personal judgment on this, putting my official role at that time aside, but that we would have a lot of time to—maybe two years or more.”

That assumption was central to the State Department’s planning at the time, catching officials off guard when the Afghan government folded immediately after the Taliban took Kabul.

“We don’t do alternative futures,” Khalilzad said.

“Did you just say that you don’t plan for contingencies outside of the dominant train of thought?” Rep. Brian Mast (R., Fla.) asked in response to Khalilzad’s disclosure.

“I think not enough of it is done in the—in our profession, in diplomacy planning in that regard,” the diplomat said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was “noticeably absent” during key decision points around the withdrawal and evacuation from Afghanistan, according to one GOP Foreign Affairs Committee aide who spoke to the Free Beacon about the interview.

“One thing that’s clear is the State Department’s lack of preparedness and its understanding of the reality of what’s happening in Afghanistan,” added a second GOP aide who reviewed the testimony.

Khalilzad’s contention that al Qaeda and its affiliated offshoots do not operate in Afghanistan also drew surprise from those on the Foreign Affairs Committee, particularly as it has become clear in the years since the Taliban resumed control that al Qaeda is using the country to plan terror attacks.

“I have to say for the record, looking back, that al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent has been dismantled,” Khalilzad said. “It doesn’t exist anymore, according to our intelligence, since the Taliban took over.”

That testimony, one committee source said, “shows that the very person the Biden administration has as their main interlocutor with the Taliban is in denial about the reality of terrorism in Afghanistan.”

Khalilzad cast doubt on claims by the Biden administration and its allies that the botched Afghanistan withdrawal was the byproduct of the Trump administration’s negotiations with the Taliban.

Talks with the terror group, the diplomat said, actually began during the Obama administration, when Taliban leaders reached out to begin negotiations over a potential military withdrawal.

The post US Greenlit Taliban’s Kabul Takeover and Had No Contingency Plan When Hell Broke Loose, Former Envoy Says appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill replaced the American flag in the center of campus with a Palestinian flag, as protests continued at the school Tuesday despite dozens of arrests and detainments.

UNC administrators demanded Tuesday morning that protesters disband the encampment, threatening suspensions and expulsion if they refused. When the protesters refused, police began making arrests. Police also erected a barrier around the school’s anti-Israel encampment, which was set up on the university’s quad last week where the American flag usually waves atop the flagpole.

The protesters later returned, forcibly removed the barrier, and began circling the flagpole. They proceeded to lower the American flag and replace it with a Palestinian one. Soon thereafter, police returned, clashed with protesters a second time, and again placed the American flag atop the flagpole under the supervision of UNC’s interim chancellor.

The tension at UNC coincides with tension on other campuses across the country. At Columbia, where the encampment movement began earlier this month, student protesters occupied a building on campus. Meanwhile, at the University of Texas-Austin, dozens of students who set up an encampment were arrested following a clash with police Monday that involved riot gear and tear gas. Similar events have occurred on other campuses across the United States.

Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts joined police as they sought to return the American flag on UNC’s quad Tuesday, video and pictures of the event showed. Protesters chanted, “Who are you protecting?” while the police restored the American flag to its place, videos posted to social media show.

It is unclear if any additional arrests were made at UNC-Chapel Hill Tuesday afternoon, following the wave of arrests earlier that morning. By the afternoon, the university decided to cancel classes and non-mandatory operations for the rest of the day.

The university did not respond to the Washington Free Beacon’s request for comment.

The university on Tuesday released a joint statement from Interim Chancellor Roberts and Provost Chris Clemens, who said protesters “backtracked on their commitment to comply with [campus] policies, including trespassing into classroom buildings overnight.”

“Our students are preparing for final exams and end-of-year activities, including graduation, and we will continue to promote an educational environment where they can do so safely and without disruption,” the statement said.

As of Tuesday evening, the university indicated that 36 protesters had been detained after failing to abide by the university’s disperse order. Thirty were cited for trespassing and later released, the university added, including 10 UNC-Chapel Hill students and 20 people not affiliated with the university. Meanwhile, six protesters, three students and three non-students, were taken to the Orange County Detention Center and later released on a notice to appear.

The post Anti-Israel Protesters at UNC Replace Stars and Stripes With Palestinian Flag appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

(WASHINGTON) — Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Wednesday she would call a vote next week on ousting House Speaker Mike Johnson, forcing her colleagues to choose sides in a difficult showdown after Democratic leaders announced they would provide the votes to save the Republican speaker’s job.

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Speaking outside the Capitol, Greene ranted against Republican Party leaders at the highest levels and pushed back against their public entreaties, including from Donald Trump, to avoid another messy political fight so close to the November election. With her was Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of the few lawmakers to join her effort.

“We need leaders in the House of Representatives that are going to get this done,” said Greene, R-Ga., holding up a red “MAGA” hat from Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign movement.

“Mike Johnson is not capable of that job,” she said.

In pressing ahead next week, she said that “every member of Congress needs to take that vote.”

The standoff with Greene, one of Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, risks throwing Republican control of the House into a fresh round of chaos as rank-and-file lawmakers will have to choose between ousting Johnson, R-La., as speaker or joining with Democrats to keep him on the job.

Johnson, in his own statement, said Greene’s move was “wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country.”

Democrats see in Johnson a potential partner, a hard-line conservative who nevertheless is willing to lead his Republican Party away from the far-right voices obstructing the routine business of governing, including funding the government and, more recently, supporting Ukraine and other U.S. allies overseas.

The Democratic leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, and his team issued a joint statement this week saying it was time to “turn the page” on the GOP chaos, announcing that the Democrats would vote to table Greene’s motion to vacate the speaker’s office, essentially ensuring Johnson is not evicted from office.

Johnson’s public opponents are few, at this point, and less than the eight that it took to oust now-former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last fall in the first ever removal of sitting speaker from the powerful office that is second in the line of succession to the president. Just one other Republican, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, has joined Greene’s effort.

Greene and Massie said they were giving their colleagues the weekend to weigh their options before calling for the vote on her motion to vacate next week. Or, they said, Johnson could simply resign, pointing to the example of a previous speaker, Republican John Boehner of Ohio, who stepped aside in 2015 when hard-liners threatened to oust him.

“Are you going to embrace Hakeem Jeffries like Mike Johnson has?” said Massie, before a poster-photo of Jeffries handing Johnson the gavel when the Republican first became speaker last fall.

“They’ve got a weekend to think about it, but more importantly, Mike Johnson has a weekend to think about it.”

The turmoil has gripped a House already essentially at a standstill. Johnson has been unable to command his razor-thin majority to work together on party priorities and has been forced him into the arms of Democrats for the votes needed to approve most big bills — and now, to keep his job.

Johnson had been elected by Republicans as a last-ditch consensus candidate after McCarthy’s ouster, but he courted the far-right’s ire when he led passage of the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine and U.S. allies that they oppose.

Trump has given a nod of support to Johnson, who dashed to the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last month to shore up backing.

Other Republican leaders, including Trump’s hand-picked head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, have urged House Republicans to hold off the removal effort before the fall election that will determine which party controls the White House and Congress.

In a private meeting Tuesday, Whatley urged House Republicans to unite around their shared priorities. He delivered the same message later in the day to Greene, telling her that trying to remove Johnson was not helpful, according to a person familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to discuss them publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

While the Democratic leaders have said they would provide the votes to table Greene’s motion when it comes forward, essentially shelving it, it is not clear that all Democratic lawmakers would join that effort.

At their own private meeting this week, some Democrats objected to helping Johnson, particularly after he helped lead Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 presidential election won by Democrat Joe Biden. Party leaders have said their support for sidelining Greene’s resolution is not the same as a vote for Johnson.