Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway argued that with U.S. troops leaving Afghanistan, the American military should turn away from the post-9/11 nation-building experiment and only fight wars “that are solely in our national interest” on Fox News’ “Special Report” Thursday.
Hemingway: With troops leaving Afghanistan, we must turn away from the nation-building experiment and only fight wars in our nation’s interest. pic.twitter.com/XgusLaNMLm
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) July 9, 2021
“Special Report” host Shannon Bream asked Hemingway to react to a press conference where President Joe Biden stated he didn’t trust the Taliban but that the Afghan troops are well-equipped and capable of defending Afghanistan, despite their small numbers.
“All these questions about how things are going to go in Afghanistan I think, miss that point that we tried this experiment, and it did not work,” said Hemingway. “This is about how we fight wars and what we’re thinking.”
Hemingway recalled a speech by the late Fox News analyst Charles Krauthammer from over 20 years ago “in which he said it would be good to spread democracy from North Africa to Afghanistan. He noted that many conservatives thought it wouldn’t work. He said it might not work but he thought we should give it a try.”
“We have given it a try,” said Hemingway, who asserted that we have given nation-building “a very long try” and it has cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. “And the nation of Afghanistan might not be able to make it even after we have invested so many resources,” she added.
“The United States understands the way that we fight wars, we have to have clear metrics of success. We have to understand why we are there,” Hemingway continued. “We have to move away from nation-building into fighting wars that are solely in our national interest — that are laser-focused on our national interest.”
Hemingway also complimented Biden for “staying strong” in the face of “pressure from the military-industrial complex” and following through with former President Donald Trump’s deadline set for American troops exiting Afghanistan.
“One of the ways [military leaders] kept us [in Afghanistan] for so long was by never really developing a strategy for how to leave,” Hemingway explained. “It would trap presidents into staying and we’re seeing some of the fallout of that now.”
“President Biden is doing a good thing by not allowing that to continue and insisting we stick with this plan and hopefully things will go well from here on out,” concluded Hemingway. “It was long fought for by many people so kudos to him.”
