Stephen Colbert on US pulling out of Afghanistan amid rise of Taliban: Right thing feels so wrong

It’s been a heavy week for us all as the world watches Afghanistan crumble in the hands of militant group Taliban that has taken control over major parts of the country. After US troops pulled out of the country, the Afghanistan government collapsed and gave in to the miscreants. 

While the world watches with a heavy heart at the sad state of affairs, on Monday’s episode of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert said it feels like a ripped ‘Band Aid’ scenario. He dedicated his entire monologue to the Taliban’ takeover of Afghanistan and the US’ withdrawal from the country after 20 years. 

Stephen Colbert said, “The US has been there for 20 years. We spent $2 trillion. We trained a 300,000-man strong Afghan army, and the Taliban took it over in 10 days. The country is in complete chaos.”

Stephen noted that US President Joe Biden is facing some flak for not leaving the country with some stability and support. He admitted that Biden will face the music “because he’s the President.” He then cut to a clip in which ABC’s Martha Raddatz referred to a “massive intelligence failure” on the part of the US. 

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Stephen said, “That’s gotta sting when people describe your foreign policy the same way they describe Ron DeSantis.” He admitted that “it’s hard to argue that the White House didn’t shank the withdrawal.”

Joe Biden had said in a July 8 press conference that “the likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” Stephen said this was the most inaccurate prediction from a president since Abraham Lincoln said, ‘See you after the play.'”

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However, Stephen agreed that Biden was right in pulling out the troops as “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” Stephen said, “He’s right. Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a civil war in Afghanistan? We’ve got our own on Capitol Hill. What’s happening now is the responsibility of both parties, and the American people who voted them into office.”

He also touched on Biden’s points that we, as a country, did everything we could for the Afghans, and that the Taliban would have taken over Afghanistan, regardless of the timing of U.S. withdrawal.

“Maybe Biden’s right. Maybe there was no good alternative. Were we never supposed to leave? Make Afghanistan the 51st state?” he wondered. “In the end, you can make us accept that there was no good alternative, but you can’t make us feel good about it. The only people who can feel good about this are the service members and their families who aren’t going to see soldiers sent into harm’s way for no reason that the commander-in-chief of either party can articulate.”

The host ended with, “So pulling out might be the right thing to do, but it’s heartbreaking, it’s humbling, when the right thing feels so wrong.”