Afghan war Vet on MSNBC blasts Biden for ‘lying’ about withdrawal
Thomas McDonald
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Matt Zeller, former First Lieutenant during the war in Afghanistan, blasted President Biden’s speech on the withdrawl of troops from Afghanistan.
Host Brian Williams asked Zeller for his reaction to President Biden’s speech from Monday, where he said he “owned” the withdrawal and that the “buck stops with him.”
Zeller tells Williams he felt like he “watched a different speech than the rest of you guys.”
“There was such a profound bold-faced lie in that speech, the idea we planned for every contingency? I have been personally trying to tell this administration since it took office. I have been trying to tell our government for years this was coming,” Zeller said.
Zeller is co-founder of ‘NO ONE LEFT BEHIND,’ a foundation that advocates for the well-being and the safe and secure placement in the U.S. of Afghan and Iraqi natives who have worked as translators with U.S. forces overseas.
The former Army Veteran says his group tried to send plans to the government to evacuate people from Afghanistan successfully, but “nobody listened to us.”
“They didn’t plan for the evacuation of our Afghan war-time allies. They’re trying to conduct it now at the 11th hour. The thing they were most concerned about was with the optics of the chaotic evacuation,” he added. “They got exactly what they were most concerned of by failing to do what was right when they could have done it. We had all of the people and equipment in place to be able to save these people months ago, and we did nothing.”
Zeller went on to express his concern that Biden announced the need to remove 26,000 people.
“There’s 86,000 people currently left behind in Afghanistan alone. We identified all of them for the government. I have no idea why he claims people don’t want to leave Afghanistan,” he said. “I have a list of 14,000 names right now of people who want to get out of Afghanistan.”
Zeller blasted Biden for placing blame on the Afghan army.
“And the idea that the Afghan military should be blamed for this? Do you know how many casualties the Afghan military took in an average year? More than the United States did in 20. When you are not getting paid on a regular basis when you are not getting fuel when no one is supplying you with ammunition, and yet you’re still showing up to the fight, how dare us for having to blame these people for not having the audacity to be able to survive a Taliban onslaught.”
“No, no, no. What we need to be doing right now, and I’m appalled the president didn’t say is we need to be talking about how we’re going to get every single one of these people out,” Zeller added.
Reactions to Zellers impassioned speech on MSNBC were widespread across social media.
“The set-up from Brian Williams was straight from Jen Psaki’s office. And then, KA-BOOM!” said one Twitter user.
“WOW. I can’t believe they didn’t cut his mic. He nailed it!!” said Pastor Greg Locke.
“This guy was spot on!!! ‘….sometimes human rights have to be defended by the barrel end of a gun!'” replied another.
“There are many veterans… Who have the opposite opinion of this gentleman… question… After 20 years, what should we have expected from the government and military after $2.25 trillion…?” said someone else.