The United States has “completely surrendered” to the Taliban and abandoned its allies in Afghanistan, Indian-American politician and former US envoy to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Sunday.
“They’re not negotiating with the Taliban. They’ve completely surrendered to the Taliban. They surrendered Bagram Air Force Base, which was a major NATO hub. They surrendered $85 billion worth of equipment and weapons that we should have gotten out of there,” Haley told CBS News in an interview.
She slammed the Biden Administration’s withdrawal policy from Afghanistan.
“They have surrendered the American people and actually withdrew our troops before they withdrew the American people. They have abandoned our Afghan allies who kept people like my husband safe while they were overseas deploying. So, no, there was no negotiating. This was a complete and total surrender and an embarrassing failure,” she said.
Haley, who is seen as a 2024 presidential aspirant, has been a vocal critic of the Afghan policies of the Biden Administration.
“This is an unbelievable scenario, where literally the Taliban has our Americans held hostage. It’s a scary time. And we have to make sure that we are working with our allies who literally won’t trust us at this point and think we’ve lost our minds. We have to figure out a way to get our Americans out and to get our allies out,” she said.
Haley said that under four years of Trump, Afghanistan was safe.
“We made sure that we kept terrorism at bay and that we came from a position of strength. What’s happened in the seven months of Biden is, we’ve completely surrendered and we’ve humiliated ourselves in the eyes of the world. The thing is, there are times where you have to negotiate with the devil, but you negotiate with the devil from a point of strength, you don’t do it from a point of weakness,” she said.
“We literally have no leverage right now with the Taliban. All we’re going to see them do is, they’re going to buy time and act like they’re going to be nice until August 31, and then all of those women, all of those girls, everything is going to go back to the way it was,” she said.
President Biden had earlier said the United States was committed to evacuating every American even if that means extending the deadline for a total withdrawal from Afghanistan beyond 31.
Expressing her apprehension on Afghanistan, Haley said, “You’re going to have sex slaves. You’re going to have child marriages. You’re going to have kids that are — girls that are no longer allowed in school. You’re going to have our Americans. Any that are there will be in danger. And all of our Afghan allies will be killed if we don’t do something.”
“This is serious. The Biden administration needs to go back and extend that August 31 deadline and make sure that the Taliban knows they’ve got to let people into the airport. We’ve got to get our Americans out. We’ve got to stay true to those Afghan allies that we made promises to. We have got to make sure we do this in a very strong way going forward,” Haley said.