general city as this moved forward. we had those forces on hand, and they were able to deploy very quickly, again, to make sure that we could move out safely and securely as the situation on the ground changed. and we are going to continue this discussion after the break as coverage of the taliban i can actually go ahead and we can continue this conversation. my apologies. so, joey, i do want to begin with you because what stuck out to me there is where he talks about how our exit strategy and what we re seeing shows that we were prepared. they want to claim that the sky is green and the grass is blue. the main thing is as the situation on the ground changes, and i ll go back to you. i don t mean to beat a dead horse here.
there was an extension, which i think is reasonable. again, the reality here is that this didn t collapse, the government didn t collapse. the security forces didn t collapse in a wholesale fashion just in these last days. it has been a steady erosion of capacity, both political capacity from kabul and military capacity. i would just note it s important what one of your previous presenters mentioned. that is that most of the cities of afghanistan did not fall by force of arms. they fell by political deal. this is as much of a political collapse as a military collapse. if there was a political collapse what does it say about the exit strategy and what has happened with the military as they have been working through, the u.s. military specifically, and how they when we look at this, how they may have been advised by the swiftness of the taliban takeover in that you are saying there were deals made. does this mean that our presence
purpose for his statement on afghanistan and action the taliban must know the world is watching actions and we are concerned about their brutal treatment of all afghans especially women and girls. pick apart that statement. and then to be bothered by nancy pelosi in the rest of the world is watching? and to be emboldened by the fact that they are showing their strength in the middle of the fighting season they can override and overtake afghanistan and anything we have created over the last 20 years including taking our equipment and flying our helicopters and taking our alienation and running away with it. that is not be allowed to happen to have the very clear exit strategy.
took place. but the real tragedy in afghanistan started in 2002 when we had a chance to get a stable government in afghanistan after the united states was able to get rid of the taliban after the attack on our country. we didn t do that. instead, the bush administration decided to go into iraq and our military was distracted. so there s been a lot of mistakes made. president biden had a very bad hand dealt to him on afghanistan. he had very few choices. there is not going to be a military solution with the u.s. troops. we needed to recognize that our troops could only be called upon for a certain period of time. the exit strategy was is not good from the point of view of there s going to be loss of life, but there was very few other options the president had. now, senator, republicans have been quick, very quick to criticize biden s handling of afghanistan, citing the threat
other than a field of dream games last night in iowa. sandra: the completion of the u.s. withdrawal is weeks away now but the biden administration is already sending thousands of troops back into afghanistan. they are evacuating staffers from the u.s. embassy in kabul. the pentagon is declining to call this a combat mission. all of this despite the taliban seizing territory at an alarming rate now. more than 2/3 of the country is under the insurgents control. the biden administration is under fire for what critics are calling a chaotic exit strategy. we have been watching closely with concern the security situation on the ground and far better to be prudent about it and be responsible in watching the trends to make the best decisions you can for safety and security of our people than to wait until it s too late.