Exclusive — Former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens: Afghanistan ‘Another Manifestation of Biden’s Policy of Weakness’

After being deployed four times, including once to Afghanistan as a Navy Seal, and seeing fellow soldiers “sacrifice tremendously” for the U.S., former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens (R) said President Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghan war has been a “complete dereliction of duty.”

“What’s happening right now is that you are seeing — yet again — another manifestation of Joe Biden’s policy of weakness,” Greitens told Breitbart News’s Washington political editor Matthew Boyle during an interview on Breitbart News Saturday. 

“You’ve seen it here at home with violence rising in the inner cities. You’ve seen it on the border where he’s turned our border over to Mexican drug gangs and cartels. You’ve seen it in America’s energy policy where he’s out begging OPEC to increase oil production. And now, you’re seeing it in Afghanistan,” Greitens continued.

After two decades and more than 2,500 U.S. soldiers killed, former President Donald Trump agreed to withdraw troops from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, in a negotiation with the Taliban. In exchange, the Taliban agreed to not attack U.S. troops and to cut ties with al-Qaeda and other international terrorist groups. Biden announced in April he would not abide by the agreement and extended the Afghan war by four months, making the new withdrawal date the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. He then revised the date, announcing American military presence would end on August 31.

Last week, the Taliban, which ruled the country before the U.S. invasion in 2001, toppled the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The Taliban’s jihadi leaders have ties to al-Qaeda, the international jihadist organization responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that prompted the American invasion.

Since the takeover, thousands of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies have flooded the Kabul airport in an effort to escape Taliban violence, though the Biden Administration said it would not prioritize Americans. The Taliban also obtained U.S. weapons from the Afghan military and has repeatedly posted propaganda mocking the U.S. while wearing stolen gear. Biden’s failed withdrawal is largely considered one of the United States’ biggest foreign policy failures, and has received condemnation from Republicans and Democrats alike, as well as other world leaders.

 

“You contrast that with President Trump, who not only pursued an “America First” policy, he also pursued a peace-through-strength policy. What did that do? It meant that we put an end to endless wars. It meant that we killed terrorists like Qasem Soleimani. It meant that we defeated ISIS,” Greitens said. “It also led to historic peace accords — for which President Trump should receive the Nobel Prize — between Israel and other nations in the Middle East through the Abraham accords.”

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Greitens, who considers himself an “America First” Republican, is vying for U.S. Senate seat in the 2022 Midterm Election. The seat is soon to be vacated by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who announced his retirement in March. Greitens said unlike former President Donald Trump, who reinvigorated the meaning of putting “America First,” President Joe Biden’s actions on Afghanistan directly benefit enemies of the United States.

“The contrast could not be starker. The only people who win from Biden’s incompetence and dereliction of duty are the Taliban, Russia, and China,” he said.

Communist China has already seized on the Taliban’s takeover — the regime has its eye on vast rare-earths mineral resources in Afghanistan, which would seal China’s role as the world’s top supplier of rare earths. The materials “are a key component for a host of advanced technologies like iPhones and hi-tech missile guidance systems,” as well as “rechargeable batteries for electric and hybrid cars, advanced ceramics, computers, DVD players, wind turbines, catalysts in cars and oil refineries, monitors, televisions, lighting, lasers, fiber optics, superconductors and glass polishing,” India’s Business Standard reported.

China positioning itself as international partner to Taliban in temptation of rare Earth materials in Afghanistan: Nato commander https://t.co/TwLJy54gxo

— The Times Of India (@timesofindia) August 22, 2021

Greitens’ competition for the U.S. Senate Seat, current Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, has a history of trying to bolster business ties with communist China. When he was a state senator, Schmitt introduced a bill in the state House to build a global cargo hub, often called the “China hub” in St. Louis. The bill was crushed before it came to fruition — lawmakers in opposition to the bill did not want to “look the other way” at “China’s history of human rights violations.”

Overall, Greitens expressed that Republicans are fed up with politicians, such as Schmitt and Biden, who fraternize with America’s enemies while ignoring real problems at home.

“[It’s] just one example where you have politicians engaged in these special interest tax credit programs designed, in this case, to benefit the country of China rather than the United States of America,” Greitens said. “These politicians push legislation to allow Missouri farmland to be sold to Chinese communist party owned companies. It is disgusting.”

“We have to have leaders who are willing to stand up and fight for the American people, who are willing to stand up against lobbyists; who are willing to stand up against the Chinese communist party; who are willing to stand up against the RINO (Republican in name only) establishment that continues to stab the American people in the back,” he added. 

1/2 So my State Senate colleague Eric Schmitt announced for US Senate today. NO, NO, NO!! Reason #1 Eric pushed his China hub $360M tax credit donor pay off to bring goods from China into St. Louis. @MarkMeadows @HawleyMO @stevebannon__ @RudyGiuliani

— Jane Cunningham (@JCunninghamMO) March 25, 2021

Greitens is currently the frontrunner ahead of Schmitt for the U.S. Senate race and has a 56 percent favorable rating, according to an August Saint Louis University poll. As far as the sentiment on the campaign trail, Greitens said the people of Missouri “are not fooled” and are ready to fight back against leftists and establishment Republicans. 

“I know from my time as a Navy Seal — things can get hard. Things can get difficult. Things can get dark,” he said. “If those patriots stand up and they say ‘this is my country and I’m taking it back’ — together we can revive this Republic.”