Brooks: ‘It’s Become Obvious in Record Time’ Biden’s Afghanistan Withdrawal Is a Mistake

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that it has quickly become clear that the withdrawal from Afghanistan is a mistake and that “We could be walking away from the idea that we can keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan again. So they could set up a terrorist spot.”

Brooks said, “I think he’s making a mistake. And it’s become obvious in record time that it’s a mistake. When he announced the policy initially, he said he had faith in the Afghan government to hold Afghanistan together from the Taliban. That has fallen apart. We reported earlier in the show, 85% of the territory has already fallen to the Taliban. The Taliban seems completely confident they will take over.”

He continued that the U.S. is “walking away from” girls in the country who want to go to school, and “We’re walking away from the idea that Afghanistan will stay one country. We could be walking away from the idea that we can keep al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan again. So they could set up a terrorist spot. You could just get incredible turmoil in that part of the world, refugees flooding into Pakistan, destabilizing Pakistan. So, to me, what we were doing over the last year, which was like 2,500 troops, relatively low casualties, was a price worth paying for humanitarian and strategic reasons. And I think it’s a mistake that we’re pulling out.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett