At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing today on President Biden’s egregiously flawed exit from Afghanistan, Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews told Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) that the Taliban brutalized people in front of US servicemembers, knowing that the United States was not “going to do anything about it.”

            “In 2021, a National Security Council spokesperson characterized the Taliban as acting ‘business-like’ and ‘professional,” said Smith, asking Vargas-Andrews about his first-hand experience during the withdrawal and noting the Biden Administration was pushing a far different narrative at the time.

            “The only thing professional about the Taliban is them professionally being able to brutalize and torture people,” said Sgt. Vargas-Andrews, a 25-year-old Marine who was injured in the bombing at Kabul Airport that took the lives of 13 fellow comrades.

            “They continued to brutalize people in front of us because they knew that they could because they knew we weren’t going to do anything about it,” said Vargas-Andrews, who testified his team had tracked the ISIS bomber but could not get permission from leadership to kill the suspected terrorist.

            “Countless Afghans were murdered by the Taliban 155 yards in front of our position day and night,” Vargas-Andrews testified. “We communicated the atrocities to our chain of command and our intel assets but nothing came of it.”

            “Some Afghans turned away from Hamid Karazai International Airport tried to kill themselves on the razor wire we used as a deterrent,” Vagas-Andrews continued. “They thought this was merciful compared to the Taliban torture they faced.”

            “Past is often prologue,” said Smith. “We know that China is telling the people of Taiwan to look at what Biden did during this egregiously flawed exodus and telling them America will not have their back.”

            Smith concluded, “Have any of us heard President Biden and Vice President Harris at the State of the Union or at any other venue talk and convey to those left behind that you are not forgotten?”

###