The news cycle for the last full week of August was again dominated by Afghanistan, culminating in a horrific suicide blast on Thursday that killed 13 U.S. service members and dozens of more civilians.
Understandably, a chastened President Joe Biden addressed the nation and vowed vengeance, but that hasn’t stopped continued criticism for his administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Here are the quotes of the week:
“I think it’s irresponsible to say Americans are stranded. They are not. We are committed to bringing Americans, who want to come home, home. We are in touch with them via phone, via text, via email, via any way that we can possibly reach Americans to get them home if they want to return home.”
– White House press secretary Jen Psaki in response to a Press Corp question that Americans are “stranded” in Afghanistan.
“They keep saying this was inevitable, but there absolutely was a way to avoid this — if that’s not the definition of gaslighting, I don’t know what is.”
– Chris Purdy, project manager of the Veterans for American Ideals program at Human Rights First, which has been helping pull people out of Afghanistan.
“We will not extend the deadline for the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. They are capable of evacuating their citizens and troops by Aug. 31. All people should be removed prior to that date. After that, we do not allow them. We will take a different stance.”
– Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the extremist group will not extend a planned date for total U.S. withdrawal.
“Charlie was a cherished husband, father and grandfather, and also as a member of the Rolling Stones one of the greatest drummers of his generation.”
– The Rolling Stones pay tribute to Charlie Watts, who died in a London hospital earlier this week at age 80.
“President Biden signed a death warrant for thousands of Afghans who helped us.”
– Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican.
“One thing is clear, there’s no way, in seven days, we can remove all American citizens, much less our Afghan partners.
When that door shuts, I still stand by my statement, he will have blood on his hands because they will execute them upon our withdrawal.”
– Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican and ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Neither Spencer nor his legal guardians ever signed a release authorizing the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him.”
– A lawsuit filed on behalf of Spencer Elden, 30, who was the baby on the front cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album. Elden is suing surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and former drummer Chad Channing, as well as Cobain’s estate and his widow, Courtney Love, claiming the nude picture constitutes child pornography.
“The world has truly never seen anything like what America is doing in Kabul this week — deeply tragic and highly heroic. Fear and desperation at their worst — hope and humanity at their finest.”
– Reps. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat, who along with his fellow congressman Peter Meijer, a Michigan Republican, traveled to Afghanistan to provide congressional oversight of the much-criticized evacuation.
“We don’t want anybody to think that this was a good idea and that they should try to follow suit.”
– House Speaker Nancy Pelosi voices her displeasure with the lawmakers’ trip.
”He turned his back and walked away — an image that has come to define him and his presidency.
He turned his back on our own citizens stranded in Afghanistan. He’s turned his back on our allies and partners, he’s turned his back on his duties as a commander in chief.”
– House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday as thousands of Americans remain in Afghanistan.
“They shouldn’t interfere in our country and take out our human resources: doctors, professors, and other people we need here.
In America, they might become dishwashers or cooks. It’s inhuman.”
– Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman in a sit-down interview with the New York Times.
“When Osama bin Laden became an issue for the Americans, he was in Afghanistan. Although there was no proof he was involved. Now we have given promises that Afghan soil won’t be used against anyone.”
– Mujahid claims there is “no evidence” that Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
“Joe Biden has blood on his hands. This horrific national security and humanitarian disaster is solely the result of Joe Biden’s weak and incompetent leadership. He is unfit to be commander in chief.”
– New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in the House, after twin bomb attacks killed 12 U.S. service members and multiple other civilians in Kabul.
“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down — and make you pay.”
– President Joe Biden after twin attacks from ISIS-K killed 12 U.S. service members outside the Kabul airport on Thursday.
“[The Taliban] are good fighters. But now they can be much better because they have the best equipment in the world, and so much of it, they don’t know what to do. They will be selling it on the open market. But we gave that to these people, and ISIS-X, as you know, I knocked out 100% of the ISIS caliphate.”
– Former President Donald Trump speaks to Fox News‘s Sean Hannity after the suicide blast on Thursday. Trump erroneously referred to ISIS-K, the Afghanistan affiliate, as ISIS-X.
“The reason people are so upset on social media right now is not because the Marine on the battlefield let someone down.
People are upset because their senior leaders let them down. And none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, ‘We messed this up.’
Potentially all those people did die in vain if we don’t have senior leaders that own up and raise their hand and say, ‘We did not do this well in the end.’
Without that, we just keep repeating the same mistakes.”
– Lt. Col. Stu Schelle, a Marine officer who went viral after he posted a video claiming senior U.S. military and civilian leaders are not “accepting accountability” for the handling of the chaotic troop withdrawal and evacuation in Afghanistan.
“[Scalia] said, ‘I don’t want somebody appointed who will just reverse everything I’ve done for the last 25 years.’
That will inevitably be in the psychology [of my decision]. I don’t think I’m going to stay there till I die — hope not.”
– Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, on when he will retire from the court, revealing some advice former Justice Antonin Scalia gave him.
“Actually, I didn’t hear General McKenzie put it that way, Jen. In fact, I think in — in one of the questions he got — and I think it was Idrees’s — you know, he said — Idrees asked, “Was there a failure?” and the general said, “Of course there was a failure somewhere, obviously.” And he even alluded to the fact that it — it could’ve been at a — a Taliban checkpoint.
“So I don’t — we’ve — we’ve not been certain about that at all. There will be an investigation, we’ll try to learn as much as we can about what happened, and I really don’t want to get ahead of that process.”
– Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby after being asked if the U.S. could say with certainty the Taliban wasn’t involved in the suicide bomb attack on Kabul airport.
“I think he made clear yesterday that he does not want them to live on the earth any more.”
– White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who asked what President Biden meant by his Thursday comments where he said “we will hunt you down and make you pay.”
“They sent my son over there as a paper pusher and then had the Taliban outside providing security. I blame my own military leaders… Biden turned his back on him. That’s it.”
– The father of Marine Kareem Nikoui, one of the 13 U.S. service members who was killed in the suicide blast on Thursday.
