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Twitter Reactions to Joe Biden's 'Taliban Is Not Our Enemy' Newsweek Comments

When Joe Biden told Newsweek "the Taliban is not our enemy," many took offense. We gather the can't-miss tweets.

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AP Photo

Speaking from his sunlit White House office, Vice President Joe Biden was uninhibited in his comments on the bank crisis in Europe, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and China. But it was his rather honest assessment of who, exactly, it is we're fighting in Afghanistan.

"Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy," he told Newsweek's Leslie H. Gelb. "That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests." He went on. "If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us." Sticking up for Biden, White House spokesman Jay Carney said his words were "only regrettable when taken out of context," arguing that Biden had clarified the Tailban would be a threat if they allowed al Qaeda to strike the U.S.

The backlash, coming from both the 2012 GOP circus show and soldiers stationed abroad, was swift. Below, we've gathered a sampling of illustrative tweets.

Donald Trump

Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican candidate

Rick Santorum, 2012 Republican candidate

Ari Fleischer, Former White House press secretary under George W. Bush

Reince Priebus, RNC Chairman

Heritage Foundation, Right-wing think tank

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Todd Starnes, Host of Fox News & Commentary with Todd Starnes

For America, right-wing coalition dedicated to fighting Obamacare

Kanchan Gupta, Associate Editor, The Pioneer

Jim Nelson, Active duty U.S. Army combat medic

United States Marine/2003 Iraq vet

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