Rep. Andy Biggs was among the first to demand President Joe Biden's resignation over his handling of American troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. That was two days before suicide bombings took the lives of 13 U.S. Marines in Kabul.
Biggs, R-AZ, repeated that absurd call today as part of a daily torrent of Tweets about Biden and Afghanistan this week. But Biggs has garnered a special distinction: He ranks at the top of the class of the classless for spewing hypocrisy on Afghanistan.
With no shame, Biggs has conveniently forgotten that he had publicly urged Biden to rush these very troops out by May -- more than three months earlier than Biden acted. That, of course, was the deadline set by Donald Trump as part of his weak negotiations with the Taliban.
Mind you, Biggs wasn't like hundreds of other enablers in Congress to go along silently with Trump's disjointed foreign policy. He made a press release out of a letter he wrote on February 22 to Biden:
"I respectfully urge you to continue to remove United States servicemembers from Afghanistan in the coming weeks, with the goal of ensuring all our brave men and women in uniform return from the theater before May.
"The war in Afghanistan has already lasted nearly two decades. Over the course of that conflict, we have lost thousands of our brave warriors and spent trillions of dollars. Staying in Afghanistan any longer will only continue to place the lives of more servicemembers at risk.
"Furthermore, a continued United States presence in the region is unlikely to lessen the threat of terrorism; in fact, it is more likely to heighten the threat. As the (Afghanistan) Study Group itself concedes, "the Taliban have signaled publicly that if all international forces are not withdrawn by May 2021…they will resume their 'jihad' against the foreign presence and will withdraw from the peace process."
"Let us not delude ourselves: On May 1, Afghanistan will not look like a beacon of democracy and prosperity. Far from it. But at least it will be on a better potential path. Over this past year especially, we have helped the people of Afghanistan to imagine a brighter future. Now the Afghanis need to be responsible for their own destiny going forward."
Well, that was prescient. Does anyone now believe the Afghan military would have risen as a mighty fighting force before May to smite the Taliban? If anything, the chaotic withdrawal would have been far more tragic if the U.S. had three fewer months to pull it off.
Even the conservative Washington Examiner was appalled, as this August 16 headline pronounced: "These prominent Republicans loved Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal plan. Until they didn't." Biggs' support for Trump's May 1 deadline was noted by the newspaper, as was his position as "chairman of the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus."
But that's just the tip of the iceberg for Biggs. His 180-degree turn on the withdrawal process was nothing next to the astonishing flip he made over the fate of Afghan refugees endangered by the Taliban takeover of their country.
Interviewed June 17 by Fox News, Biggs said the following of those Afghans:
"We can't leave these folks behind. They helped us when we were over there in that country. We needed them desperately. They answered the call. In my opinion it would be inhumane to leave them behind subject to some brutal attacks and possible death by one of the bad guys. We need to bring home. We need to bring them here to the United States of America, the nation they have been helping. These people were effectively part of our military, and it would not be good for the United States of America to leave these folks behind."
Five weeks later, to the day -- on July 22 -- Biggs would become one of just 16 members of Congress to vote against relaxing visa requirements for the same Afghan refugees. So much for "bringing them home to the nation they have been helping."
Congress passed the "The Averting Loss of Life and Injury by Expediting SIVs (ALLIES) Act" by an overwhelming vote of 407-to-16. It's purpose: "(to increase) the number of special immigrant visas available to qualified Afghan nationals who worked for the U.S. government or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) missions in Afghanistan.'
But Biggs suddenly was fine with "leaving those folks behind." He cast his "no" vote in contrast to 192 of his fellow House Republicans who supported the measure.
Biggs joined the likes of fellow House Islamophobes Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar and Mo Brooks in rejecting the help he had publicly advocated. Even by the low standards of American politics circa 2021, it was a spectacular contradiction of his own words.
But give Biggs this much, though: At least he doesn't pretend to care.
