U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on December 11, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
OAN Staff Blake Wolf 3:56 PM – Wednesday December 11, 2024
Secretary of State Antony Blinken finally testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday regarding the American taxpayer funds given to the Taliban, in addition to the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, following months of back-and-forth fighting.
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Blinken showed up to the hearing after evading two subpoena demands, pushing the court to hold a vote to hold Blinken in contempt after heskipped a September 3rd date to appear.
The House House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), continued to grill Blinken for attempting to evade the hearing.
“I have to say I’m disappointed,” McCaul voiced, criticizing Blinken for “showing up only after violating a congressional subpoena.”
McCaul then moved on to blast Blinken for the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which resulted in the deaths of 13 American service members that were killed in a suicide bombing attack.
“With the warning bells sounding loudly, … ringing loudly, you denied the imminent and dangerous threats to American interest,” McCaul continued. “It was the deadliest day of the United States presence in … Afghanistan since 2012 and the saddest thing, sir, is that it did not have to happen.”
Blinken responded, expressing remorse while attempting to shift blame to the Republicans.
“I think today, especially of the 13 heroes that we lost at Abbey Gate. And I deeply regret we did not do more and could not do more to protect them,” Blinken stated.
“I deeply regret that we did not do more and could not do more to protect them.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before a House committee on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, apologizes to families of 13 service members killed. https://t.co/5WI0jopUWRpic.twitter.com/VcynFJsQQz
“Any attempt to understand, learn from the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has to be put in the proper context of what preceded it,” he continued, indicating criticism for Trump’s prior policies. He maintained that the Doha agreement, which was negotiated under the Trump administration, was seriously flawed.
However, the DOJ under the Biden administration stated in 2022 that, “The Doha Agreement provided a pathway for the Taliban to participate in intra-Afghan negotiations to create a post-settlement government. The United States continues to support such efforts,” suggesting that Biden’s administration agreed with the pact and facilitated it.
“By January 2021, the Taliban was in the strongest military position it had been since 9/11 [and] we had the smallest number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan since 2001,” he added. “All of us, including myself, wrestled with what we could have done differently during that period and over the preceding two decades.”
Additionally, the committee later slammed Blinken for “giving the Taliban tens of billions of dollars.”
🚨BREAKING: Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirms the Taliban has received U.S. tax dollars, but dismisses it as a small fraction. pic.twitter.com/WVq5kh8vQ7
“There’s an American citizen out there, literally woke up this morning losing 30% of their paycheck. And a good percentage of that is going to the Taliban or other programs abroad,” Mast stated. “And this is something that we all need to think about, and we will be thinking about deeply for the next two years. There’s a joke that’s made often out there about kids going to college to learn basket weaving, and what a joke that would be. But the United States right now is literally sending tens of millions of dollars to the Taliban. 14.9 million, to be exact, to teach Afghans how to do carpet weaving.”
Mast continued, cornering Blinken on the American tax dollars deceptively spent on social programs in Afghanistan, which were later discovered to be funding the terrorist group, adding that “we don’t have any diplomats on the ground to confirm the validity of these programs.”
“Even worse, by the numbers, we spent $9 billion to resettle 90,000 roughly Afghan refugees here since the fall of Afghanistan. My simple Army math tells me that’s about $100,000 a person. That’s absurd. So my question for you. We do not even have an embassy in Afghanistan. We have no diplomats there. What are we doing giving them $1?” Mast questioned.
“Mr. Secretary, you know for a fact that people literally, especially outside of this country, they directly lied to us,” Mast added. “Your people had to come back and correct. Hey, it turns out we were, in fact, spending half a million dollars to expand atheism in Nepal. through the third party implementer of Humanist International. They were lying to us. They didn’t show us the exact slide show that they put together for half a million dollars. And all this, they lied to us. We have no eyes on the ground. And I would simply close with this. We again, we do not even have an embassy there. We have no business putting one dollar into that place.”
Blinken responded again, denying Mast’s criticisms, adding: “The work we have done through these partners, and many other countries have done, has saved many, many lives in an incredibly difficult situation.”
GOP Rep. Tim Burchett also commented on these issues back in September.
“…The Afghanistan withdrawal was a complete disaster, but lots of people do not know that the Biden administration has been sending cash to the Taliban every week since then… When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, our troops were ordered to leave behind $7 billion worth of military equipment which ended up in the hands of the Taliban. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban also likely gained access to approximately $57.6 million in funds that the United States had provided to the former Afghan government,” Burchett stated.
This is not a joke: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spent tens of millions of YOUR tax dollars to teach Afghans how to carpet weave.
That’s on top of the $3 BILLION they sent to Afghanistan since the Taliban took over. How does this help America? pic.twitter.com/dyjoUWKDLP
