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Calls growing for Biden’s impeachment or resignation following Kabul carnage

A person wounded in a bomb blast outside the Kabul Airport in Afghanistan on Thursday, Aug. 26, arrives at a hospital in Kabul. (Photo by New York Times)

In the wake of deadly attacks outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, which claimed over 100 lives, including 13 US service members, calls have intensified in the US for President Joe Biden’s impeachment or resignation.

A large number of US Republican politicians are also demanding resignation from Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Leading the crusade is Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations, who has called for Biden's resignation while expressing concern over his likely succession.

“Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes,” she tweeted. “But that would leave us with Kamala Harris which would be ten times worse. God help us.”

US officials have confirmed the deaths of 13 American troops in a series of blasts, claimed by the Daesh militant group, which rocked the Afghan capital late on Thursday.

The attacks came amidst chaos and commotion at the airport, which has been taken over by the US troops to evacuate American civilians and diplomats following the Taliban takeover.

Biden, who has in recent weeks appeared dismissive of the dramatic turn of events in the war-ravaged country that the US occupied for 20 years, has vowed retaliation to the attacks.

“We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,” he said in early evening remarks from the White House. “We will respond with force and precision at our time, at the place we choose and the moment of our choosing.”

His aides have asserted that the Democratic president has not wavered on the August 31 deadline for getting all Americans out of the country.

The Democrat President has come under blistering criticism in recent weeks for his hasty and disorderly exit from Afghanistan and the tame surrender to the born-again Taliban militant group.

The devastating attacks on Thursday have further compounded his troubles at home.

Nearly two dozen US House and Senate Republicans on Thursday called for Biden to resign or be impeached, as tensions between him and Republicans in the US Congress have escalated dramatically.

Among the 20 House Republicans who have called for Biden to resign or be impeached includes Tom Rice from South Carolina, who had in January also voted to impeach former President Donald Trump.

“Well Joe, you’ve proven yourself incapable of handling your job as Commander in Chief.  You ignored your advisors, rushed this haphazard withdrawal without appropriate conditions and before evacuating our citizens and friends.  Your ineptitude has now cost at least 12 American lives,” he said in a statement.

Senators Josh Hawley (Missouri) and Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee) both issued statements on Thursday calling on the US President and his core team to resign from office.

Others demanding Biden’s resignation include Elise Stefanik (New York), a top Republican in the US House of Representatives, and Claudia Tenney (New York), a swing district congresswoman.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative from Georgia, who has been calling for Biden’s impeachment since he took office and has already submitted three impeachment resolutions, also upped the ante.

Roger Marshall, a Senator from Kansas said Biden should “resign immediately” if he doesn’t “face the American people” and “address questions on how we will respond to this massacre.”

Madison Cawthorn, a Representative from North Carolina, sent a letter to Vice President Harris on Thursday urging her to begin the process of removing Biden from office.

The letter, which addresses Harris as “Kamela Harris,” asks her to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows a majority of the Cabinet to remove a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

Cawthorn claims that the 78-year old president has a “declining mind” and is unfit to oversee crises like the US withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, US Central Command chief Gen. Frank McKenzie has warned of additional attacks from the Daesh militant group in Kabul, including using vehicles or rockets.

"We thought this would happen sooner or later," McKenzie said on Thursday.


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