FEE’s Hannah Cox writes, “After 20 years and over $2 trillion dollars, the Afghanistan War is finally over. Does that mean our massive defense budget will finally be trimmed?

Nope.

Why Is the US Increasing the Pentagon’s Budget by $37,000,000,000 Despite Leaving Afghanistan?

That’s the right question.

From me:https://t.co/XGGL6e7Szm

— Hannah Cox (@HannahDCox) September 28, 2021

Congress is actually on the verge of passing an increase to the Pentagon’s budget, preparing to allocate $740 billion for the fiscal year 2021-2022. That’s more than President Joe Biden even requested. In fact, it’s $37 billion more.”

Read the entire column.

The post The Afghanistan war is over. Why is the Pentagon’s budget increasing by $37 billion? appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Free the People’s Terry Kibbe writes, “It’s been less than a month since our troops pulled out of Afghanistan. And yet, it has almost completely left the news cycle. Our withdrawal from the country was long overdue, regardless of whether or not you thought we should have ever been there in the first place.”

“Our withdrawal from the country was long overdue, regardless of whether or not you thought we should have ever been there in the first place. What did we accomplish? Basically nothing.”
New article by @tkibbe, CEO of @FreethePeople⁰https://t.co/c3bHitFpPJ pic.twitter.com/bWthpI60Ur

— Matt Kibbe (@mkibbe) September 27, 2021

“What did we accomplish?” Kibbe writes. “Basically nothing.”

Read the entire column.

The post ‘What did we accomplish in Afghanistan? Basically nothing’ appeared first on Liberty Tree.

72 hours before the Biden administration admitted 7 innocent children were killed in Afghanistan, Antony Blinken told @RandPaul he did not know who was killed.

Was he lying under oath?

— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) September 20, 2021

The New York Post reported on September 14, Sen. Rand Paul “questioned Blinken over the identity of the person the Biden administration ‘droned’ after reports emerged that an innocent aid worker and his family were killed instead of the intended ISIS-K target.

The secretary of state told the hearing that the identity of the person was still being reviewed.

‘So you don’t know or won’t tell us?’ Paul pressed the nation’s top diplomat. ‘I don’t, I don’t know, because we’re reviewing it,’ Blinken responded.”

The post Did Blinken lie under oath about drone killing? appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Breitbart News reports, “Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) on Tuesday decried House Democrats killing an investigation into U.S. military gear abandoned in Afghanistan following President Joe Biden’s deadly evacuation.

Every single Democrat on the House Oversight Committee just voted against my amendment to track down the military equipment seized by the Taliban

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) September 2, 2021

‘Every single Democrat on the committee voted against this measure,’ Mace exclusively told Breitbart News.

Today, I introduced an amendment to investigate just how many of our military assets are now in the hands of the Taliban. How could anyone oppose this? pic.twitter.com/Q3JfPkYOvE

— Rep. Nancy Mace (@RepNancyMace) September 2, 2021

‘I don’t know how you vote against this,’ she added about the Democrat members of the House Oversight committee who asserted Mace’s amendment was ‘out of order’ and voted to block the measure. The amendment would have redirected $25 million from the Government Accountability Office to the Department of Defense Inspector General to aid in ‘tracking and recouping military equipment seized by the Taliban.”

The post Democrats block Mace amendment to investigate U.S. weapons abandoned in Afghanistan appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Hannah Cox writes, “A new Washington Post—ABC News Poll found that 26 percent of Americans approve of both the withdrawal and the handling of it, while 52 percent approve of ending the war but disapprove of the way it was handled. All in all, that equates to 78 percent of Americans supporting the end to this war.

“No matter how aghast Americans were at our chaotic and catastrophic withdrawal, they remain steadfast in their belief that it was the right choice.”@HannahDCox https://t.co/8NOsbJSAdw

— Brad Polumbo ?? ?‍? (@brad_polumbo) September 3, 2021

Only 23 percent of Republicans, 21 percent of Independents, and 5 percent of Democrats oppose the withdrawal. This is astonishing.”

Read Hannah’s entire column.

The post A majority of Americans agree with withdrawal from Afghanistan but do not like how it was handled appeared first on Liberty Tree.

We’re getting pretty darn used to seeing the president walk away from the podium.

He’d rather have his press secretary take tough questions than answer for the debacle he’s caused. https://t.co/94ccPQ15wS

— Congresswoman Kat Cammack (@RepKatCammack) September 3, 2021

“I’m not supposed to take any questions but go ahead,’ Biden told Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer Jacobs.

Jacobs began, ‘Mr. President, on Afghanistan—’

‘I’m not gonna answer on Afghanistan now,’ Biden interjected before walking away from the podium.”

The post We’re getting used to seeing Biden walk away from questions about Afghanistan appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Newsmax reports, “Saying she is ‘absolutely, utterly disgusted’ at the ‘total and utter incompetence of this administration,’ Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., told Newsmax she had to watch the Taliban execute a translator that was attempting to help her office get Americans and allies out of Afghanistan.

‘They may say that the war is over, that the conflict is over — it isn’t until every single American gets home,’ Cammack told Monday’s ‘Spicer & Co.’ ‘So until that president, that man in the White House who claims to be commander in chief decides to do something different, we will make sure that we are putting people above politics.”

Read the entire story.

The deaths of our service members were preventable with a leader who cared about this situation, instead of shifting blame, pointing fingers and absolving himself of any and all responsibility. Simply put, saying, ‘The buck stops with me,’ isn’t enough.”https://t.co/6OgSLjKBWC

— Congresswoman Kat Cammack (@RepKatCammack) September 1, 2021

The post By leaving Americans stranded, Biden is putting politics above people in Afghanistan appeared first on Liberty Tree.

FEE’s Peter Jacobsen writes, “Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates the US spent $2.2 trillion over the 19 years, increasing the tax burden of every American by $6,000. Further, the Watson Institute estimates ‘241,000 people have died as a direct result of this war. These figures do not include deaths caused by disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war.’

“So there’s no need to play the blame game with Trump or Biden. The blame for the disaster in Afghanistan falls squarely on the experts in Washington, DC, who began this crusade nearly 20 years ago.”https://t.co/XCiAycII71

— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) August 31, 2021

Yet, in the end, it was all for nought. The US-sponsored Afghan government collapsed shortly after the lethally botched US military withdrawal, and the Taliban are once again in power. Only now, they are armed with billions of dollars worth of US military gear.

Who’s to blame?”

Read the entire column here.

The post The Afghanistan War Was a 20-Year Failure in Central Planning appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul voted for the U.S. to go after the Taliban after 9/11 because that group was harboring al-Qaeda, who had attacked the U.S. After that mission was accomplished fairly quickly, Paul spent the next twenty years wondering why America was still in an unwinnable war with no clear mission in a faraway land.

But Ron Paul also had another idea after 9/11. Titled the “September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001,” Rep. Paul introduced a bill that would give congressional authority to hire private individuals or entities “to seize outside the geographic boundaries of the United States and its territories the person and property of Osama bin Laden, of any al Qaeda co-conspirator, and of any conspirator with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda who are responsible for the air piratical aggressions and depredations perpetrated upon the United States of America on September 11, 2001.”

It got no traction. Paul was mocked for it. Politico called it “wacky.”

After 9/11, @RonPaul advised targeted pursuit of Bin Laden & Al Qaeda through the issuance of letters of Marque and Reprisal, a constitutional power granted to Congress but rarely used.

— Eric Brakey (@SenatorBrakey) August 27, 2021

You know what’s wacky? Spending trillions of dollars and sacrificing so many lives to fight a war that has left the U.S. and Afghanistan worse off than before. What is wacky is trying to punish the Taliban but instead rewarding them with full control of their country again and billions in U.S. weapons to maintain their power.

For 20 years. THAT’s wacky.

No, instead we could have sent special forces or private contractors to hunt down specific members of al-Qaeda and brought them to justice for far less money and suffering. As Ron Paul said of the Afghanistan war ending according to The Hill’s Eric Brakey, “How could the US war machine and all its allied profiteers make their billions if we didn’t put on a massive war?”

We should have listened to Ron Paul. Just put that last sentence on repeat for most things.

The post We should have used Ron Paul’s idea to go after al-Qaeda instead of fighting a dumb war appeared first on Liberty Tree.

Young Americans for Liberty’s Eric Brakey writes at The Hill, “When Congress passed the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), they went far beyond initiating war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda. Congress gave near limitless and indefinite authorization for the executive branch to wage war against anyone, anywhere in the world.

My latest op-ed at @TheHill.

“The botched withdrawal from Afghanistan plastered across cable news is emblematic of the entire slow-rolling quagmire: a disaster everyone could have predicted and no one prepared for.”https://t.co/XTzmyktdLv

— Eric Brakey (@SenatorBrakey) August 31, 2021

This broad grant of war-making power was counterproductive to the mission of justice for the 9/11 attacks, setting the stage for 20 years of mission creep in Afghanistan and multiple sequels.

To close the chapter on these failed forever wars, Congress must repeal the 2001 AUMF.”

Read the entire column here.

The post Who authorized the Afghanistan war to begin with? appeared first on Liberty Tree.