Former US President Donald J. Trump, speaking at a rally on Saturday, strongly criticized the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, highlighting the strategic importance of Bagram Airfield. Trump argued that the mishandling of the withdrawal under the Biden administration not only resulted in a chaotic exit but also emboldened adversaries like Russia and China.
“If I was president, the Afghanistan disaster, which probably caused Putin to go in—and by the way, he wouldn’t have gone in with me. He would have never gone in with me. And he didn’t,” Trump stated, asserting that his leadership would have deterred Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While Trump supported the decision to end the 20-year military engagement in Afghanistan, he condemned the abandonment of Bagram Airfield, a significant military base he said was built by the U.S. at the cost of “billions of dollars”. “I would have kept Bagram. It’s one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. We gave it to them so stupidly,” Trump said, emphasizing the airfield’s strategic proximity to China.
He described Bagram as “one of the biggest airfields in the world” and criticized the Biden administration for not utilizing it during the evacuation. “The lift should have been done at Bagram, not their little local airport where they had riots all over the place, and then the bombs started going, killing 13 of our great people,” Trump said, referencing the deadly attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul during the evacuation process.
Trump blamed the “incompetence” of military leaders and the administration for what he called the “worst, most embarrassing disaster” in U.S. history.
He suggested that the perceived weakness and mismanagement of the Afghanistan exit encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. “Because of that, I think Putin looked at that, the incompetence, the stupidity of Milley and these guys that don’t know what the hell they’re doing, and he looked at it and he said, this is a great time to go into Ukraine,” Trump said.
Furthermore, Trump claimed that if he were still in office, significant geopolitical events such as the Afghanistan withdrawal, the Ukraine invasion, and the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas would not have occurred. “If I was president, the Afghan disaster would have never happened, Ukraine would have never happened, and October 7th, the attack on Israel would have never happened,” he asserted.
Trump’s comments at the rally underscored his ongoing critique of the current administration’s foreign policy and military decisions, positioning himself as a stark contrast in leadership and strategy.
