Former Navy SEAL, veteran and Blackwater founder Erik Prince blamed the alleged “failed leadership” of “half-baked politicians” in Washington for the Taliban’s imminent victory in Afghanistan during Friday’s broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
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“The taxpayers have done their part, Lord knows we’ve spent a lot of money, the rank and file soldiers have done their part,” Prince told Fox News Host and Daily Caller co-founder, Tucker Carlson. “I am truly sad for the veterans … We have lost 60,000 veterans to suicide in the global War on Terror — that’s more than we lost in Vietnam — from despair from seeing it done poorly.” (RELATED: Afghanistan President Blames US Troop Withdrawal For Worsening Security Amid Taliban Gains)
Prince blamed the “national security elites in Washington” for allegedly transforming “a brilliant victory” by U.S. forces into “a massive failed nation-building exercise.” He argued that those elites did not recognize that Afghanistan was not a centralized state and could not be unified or controlled from the capital of Kabul.
“The most expensive military in the world replicated itself in Afghanistan with a lot of expensive capability and we’ve been beaten by weapons designed in the 1940s carried largely by illiterate goat herders. If there is any shame in Washington, there should be a lot of people resigning and if not, they should be fired.”
He argued that decision-makers in “Beltway offices” were not the ones who lost “limbs, lives [and] marriages” as a result of combat. “Whether it’s the Trump Administration, the Biden administration, the Obama administration — the same knuckleheads giving really bad advice at the national security level have gotten away with the same failed approach.” (RELATED: Taliban Shows Off Containers Of Weapons As US Troops Withdraw)
Prince concluded that the war was “pissed away by half-baked politicians in Washington. It’s disgusting,”
The Biden administration has been insisting that Afghanistan can defend itself against the Taliban without U.S. assistance. “Ultimately, the Afghan National Security Defense Forces have the equipment, numbers, and training to fight back,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a White House press briefing on Aug. 11. “They have what they need. What they need to determine is if they have the political will to fight back, and if they have the ability to unite … as leaders to fight back. And that’s really where it stands at this point.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House on July 19, 2021 in Washington, DC. Later that afternoon, President Joe Biden met with King Abdullah II of Jordan.(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The Taliban is marching toward Kabul and have already conquered 11 provincial capitals — five alone have fallen since Wednesday — and, as of Thursday, they controlled two-thirds of Afghanistan. The U.S. is deploying 3,000 troops to help evacuate Americans still working in the Afghan capital of Kabul.