John McCain Blames America For Afghanistan

The Arizona senator told foreign press that Obama has failed the nation.

WASHINGTON — A couple of weeks after blaming the Orlando massacre on President Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) let fly again, telling a Pakistan television station in an interview posted online Friday that the U.S. is to blame for thedeteriorating state of Afghanistan.

McCain, apparently interviewed in his office this week ahead of a July 4 trip to Pakistan, was asked by interviewer Moeed Pirzada whether the current president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, is too technocratic and isolated to deal with the resurgent Taliban and other threats in his country.

“Do you think Taliban are the only issue or is something else needed in Afghanistan?” Pirzada asked.

“I believe that I have to be very frank,” McCain said, explaining that he believed Ghani, who took office in 2014, was a vast improvement on his predecessor, Hamid Karzai.

“I don’t blame Ashraf Ghani. I blame the United States of America for not consolidating the gains that we made,” McCain said. “And this president has this idea for the last eight years that if we pull out of conflicts, those conflicts end.”

Obama did run on a platform of ending the military conflicts begun under President George W. Bush, and achieved his goal — at least temporarily — in Iraq. There are now U.S. troops in that country assisting efforts to contain the Islamic State militant group.

Obama announced last fall that he would keep thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan until at least 2017.  - Read More

John McCain Blames America For Afghanistan

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