senat afghanistan is spinning out of control. documents being shredded how are things being secured. we are continue to have a democratic presence on the ground in afghanistan. but we are reducing the size of our civilian footprint given the evolving security situation there. afghanistan is highest number documented civilian casualties in a single year since u.s. records began. these soldiers and marines fully kitted out putting on night vision goggles landing in kabul taking positions in airport they are going to a combat zone, are they not. they are certainly going into harms way lucas. let s bring in our panel mollie mollie hemmingwayway at the federalist. charles lane opinion writer for the washington post and steve hayes editor of the dispatch. welcome to you all.
cuomo former, soon-to-be former governor of new york forced to resign over the sexual harassment case. trace: he did resign? mollie, you last? my winner are parents taking on school boards pushing bad ideas such as critical race theory and other racist ideas on their children. my loser secretary mayorkas who is overseeing the humanitarian disaster at the border caused by the administration s policy. trace: thank you all. when we come back, notable quotables. .
islamist group. number one, and number two, allies all over the world, japan, korea, the middle east, latin america are all asking themselves today are we going to end up like these folks in kabul? maybe highly imperfect and so forth but put their trust in the united states and at the end of the day one fine day the president said contrary to the advice of my military advisers who tell me that with just 2500 troops we can make a go of it, we are leaving. trace: mollie, you can respond to that these people, these interpreters, these people who we depended on for years need to get out, we re trying right now to get them out. it s absolutely true that the pentagon did not make good exit plans in part because they were trying to trick president biden into staying there. that s what our pentagon has done. that is how they have been able to keep people there but the fact is that rather than focusing on what s in the taliban s interest, we need to be thinking about what is in our
one month ago today, mollie not today but one month ago maybe a few days after that, it seems that president biden said it was highly unlikely that the taliban would take over in afghanistan today congressman mark green of tennessee also an afghan vet he said this, watch. the truth of the matter is this surprised them. they were not expecting this no you been in coming was briefed this was going to happen. they got caught with their pantsdown no outcome has to be inevitable here. i m not going to speculate about surprise. watching this like you are watching this it sure appeared to be a surprise, mollie, your thoughts? the pundits and media and politicians are talking about the incompetence of the exit or how surprised they are about what it is like to leave afghanistan. but they shouldn t be surprised. this is the natural result of 20
civilians, chuck what used to be kabul international airport, right the taliban is maybe hours or days away from teeferg. it sure looks like this could become a combat admission it okay a great question no one knows the answer to. what is more in the taliban s interest to stand back a while and let the americans go peacefully so they don t risk retaliation from these very capable u.s. troops or engage them and bloody them and engage them further and make things more difficult for president biden. i want to go back to what mollie said with her second guessing and so forth of this mission. and focus on today. what is happening today what is happening today whether you like it or not whether we should have been there or not, is that thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people who depended on us are now left high and dry and exposed to tremendous potential reprisals and violence at the hands of this extreme