Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) weighed in on the evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies out of Afghanistan by the August 31 deadline set by President Joe Biden.
Many are pushing Biden to extend the deadline, but Moulton, a former Marine officer who served in Iraq, emphasized that it can’t be extended beyond the end of August.
“Let’s start with the fact that Washington put [Marines] in this place, put them in this impossible place, in this impossible situation, with a nearly impossible mission,” Moulton outlined. “And yet the Marines on the ground are so committed to saving these Afghan friends because they know that America made them a promise that they want to stay there as long as it takes. You wouldn’t believe how many Marines said, ‘Sir, we have got to find a way to extend this deadline so that we can keep doing this because there’s more people we can save. That’s how committed they are.”
He continued, “As soon as those Marines were killed, there were other Marines who said, ‘Send me out there. Let me go. I’ll go next.’ One of the most important things I learned from being there, though, was that we can’t extend this deadline because we have to bring people home after we leave, and without getting into the details of the negotiations, that’s not a tenable position if we stay beyond August 31. We’ve tried to negotiate that with the Taliban, and it’s not going to work.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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