Senate candidate and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy spoke with Fox News Digital about the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Fox News Digital)
"Our intelligence community and military are great organizations. I was a part of them for a long time. I'm proud of them. But we also have to be able to recognize our failures when they happen and call them that and then improve as an organization," Sheehy told Fox News Digital. "And Afghanistan was an abject failure in every respect of everything that those organizations are charged to do."
After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban quickly took over Afghanistan's capital of Kabul and thousands of U.S. citizens and allies were left behind in a region controlled by a radical Islamist group.
"Since what's happened there, with obviously the Taliban flying our helicopters all over the country, taking our weapons, we sent a message of weakness around the world," Sheehy said of the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.
The Senate candidate added that "no one's been held accountable" for the withdrawal, which began undergoing hearings by the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2023.
The Taliban celebrate their first anniversary of retaking Afghanistan after the U.S. troops withdrew. (Paula Bronstein)
Some Democrat lawmakers have pointed to the administration under former President Trump, who endorsed Sheehy in his Senate race to unseat Democrat Sen. Jon Tester, contributing to the withdrawal. Sheehy touched on the issue, saying the administration has a history of blaming Republicans for their "abject failures."
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"You know, they did the exact same thing in Iraq. When Obama pulled us out there, they blamed it on Bush. You know, they always want to blame, the mistakes leading up to this on the previous guy. Just like they're blaming Ukraine somehow now on Trump," Sheehy said, defending the former President Trump. "They're giving billions of dollars to Iran and pulling us out of Afghanistan. And then, of course, when he actually does execute his invasion of Ukraine, somehow it's the fault of Republicans. So, you know, it's just it's unconscionable that they continue to blame their total abject failures on the previous administrations."
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and State Department.
Aubrie Spady is a Production Assistant for Fox News Digital.
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