Polis to Biden: Colorado 'stands ready' to help Afghan refugees

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DENVER — Two decades after U.S.-led military forces ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the militant, Sunni Islamist organization known for uncompromising brutality returned to power, taking control of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan was quick—quicker than the U.S. government anticipated, Biden admitted in an August 16 speech—and so was the response from congressional leaders, pundits, and foreign policy experts.

As NPR’s Barbara Sprunt noted in a round-up of reactions, criticism of the Biden’s administration withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s surge to power was bipartisan: “Republicans were scathing about the White House's actions, and Democrats, while acknowledging that Biden was carrying out the policies of his predecessor, criticized the haphazard manner of the U.S. withdrawal.”

Rocky Mountain PBS spoke to Sheila Rucki, a professor of political science and international relations at Metropolitan State University of Denver, who said the situation in Afghanistan was “shocking but not surprising.”

“It is just incredibly sad to think there are so many Afghans who helped the United States and who threw their lot in the hope of a brighter future that now are in hiding. It’s just reprehensible that we’ve once again left so many people who trusted us behind,” Rucki said in a reference to the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Also drawing a line to the Vietnam war, Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, criticizing the president, called the fall of Afghanistan Biden's "Saigon moment."

In an August 16 press conference with former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other leaders, Colorado Congressman Jason Crow (D-Aurora) criticized the Biden administration’s role in the ongoing chaos in Kabul.

“We should have started this evacuation months ago and had we done that tens of thousands of folks could have been brought to safety,” Crow said during the press conference. “It could have been done deliberately and methodically. We think that was a missed opportunity.”

Harrowing footage from Kabul showed thousands of Afghans rushing to the airport as U.S. Military aircraft departed. Seven people died in the chaos, according to the Associated Press, including multiple people who fell from the plane. U.S. forces killed two people who Pentagon officials described as carrying weapons.

[Related: Inside the desperate, dangerous scramble to evacuate Kabul as Taliban seizes control]

President Biden in a speech delivered August 16 said that while the Taliban’s rise to power happened more quickly than the U.S. was expecting, he stands by his decision to withdraw (a plan that his predecessor, Donald Trump, put into motion after negotiating with the Taliban).

“American troops cannot, and should not, be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” Biden said, adding, “I am deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision."

Biden said the quick collapse of the Afghan government and the lack of fight from the Afghan military reinforced his decision to withdraw the American troops.

"There is no chance that one more year, five more years or 20 more years of U.S. military boots on the ground would have made any difference," Biden said, noting that he is the fourth U.S. President to preside over the war in Afghanistan.

“I will not pass this responsibility onto a fifth president,” Biden added. You can watch his full speech below.