Rep. Dan Crenshaw: 20 years 'not a lot of time' for US to assist Afghan forces

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said on Monday that 20 years “is not a lot of time” for the United States to have spent in Afghanistan, where it worked to build up an independent military for the country.

Crenshaw’s comment came during an appearance on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” as he commented on the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan in recent days and seizing control of the capital of Kabul.

On Fox, Crenshaw said he was opposed to the withdrawal of American troops from the country, where they have been since 2001. The congressman went on to argue that Afghanistan’s army, which put up almost no resistance to the Taliban, was a “brand new” force “in the grand timeline of history.”

“Twenty years is not a lot of time to build up a competent force that can stop an insurgency as vicious as the Taliban,” said Crenshaw.

The war in Afghanistan is the longest conflict in the entire history of the United States. Since it was launched by former President George W. Bush, 2,448 U.S. service members have died in the conflict. An additional 3,846 American contractors have been killed there, and more than 113,000 Afghan civilians, military, and police have died, according to data from the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

From the Aug. 16 edition of Fox News’ “Fox & Friends”:

DAN CRENSHAW: I’ve seen other Democrat congressmen do the same thing, saying you know, this was a tough decision by Joe Biden, and he made the right one. As if the current outcome is better than a moment more of our troops on the ground.

 

Again, those are your choices: The current outcome, which is a complete, unmitigated disaster, or troops on the ground in a more responsible way – even just for a few more months, I mean, just to develop a plan because its pretty obvious to me that our Department of Defense did not develop a plan to do this.

 

And for them to just blow past that or blame Trump or something else – or blame the Afghan army as they’ve been doing—

 

BRIAN KILMEADE, Fox News: That’s what they did today.

 

CRENSHAW: You’re trying to teach a guy to swim as he’s drowning, as you pull the life raft away. Look, this notion that this brand-new army – and it is brand new in the grand timeline of history. Twenty years is not a lot of time to build up a competent force that can stop an insurgency as vicious as the Taliban.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.