In 2007 video, Joe Biden obliterates his 2021 policies on border, war exit

Joe Biden told voters 14 years ago that the U.S. needed to beef up border protection, and warned that U.S. arms left behind in a war zone would be used against future generations of Americans and that any drawdown of forces would have to take place over the span of one year, according to video footage unearthed by Just the News.

Biden made the comments during a town hall meeting on Aug. 12, 2007 while campaigning for president in Winterset, Iowa, against his future boss Barack Obama.

While discussing elements of U.S. border strategy, the 2007-vintage Biden sounded unlike the 2021 President Biden, who has drawn widespread condemnation for lax border enforcement policies that have brought unprecedented numbers of illegal aliens into the United States.

"It matters how you control your borders, not just for immigration, but it matters for drugs, terror, a whole range of other things," Biden 2007 said.

The then-candidate told his audience that the U.S. should exert tighter control of its borders. 

"I've been arguing for the need to put more protection at our borders, meaning that you have more border guards," he said.

"You have to have a significant increase in the security at the border, including limited elements where you actually have a fence," Biden said. The fence would not be 3,000 miles long, he noted, but would be erected in key places.

"There are certain places people can go over and under a fence, but you can't take 100 kilos of cocaine over and under a fence," Biden said. "And what you do when you have limited places where fences are in populated areas, you force these drug dealers and others around making it easier to apprehend because there's fewer places that come through."

Biden told his audience that U.S. jobs should be reserved for Americans, and that would-be immigrants should go through a rigorous process of being allowed to remain in the country. 

"We should provide for a means by which there is earned access over time, where you have to learn the language, where you have to demonstrate you have a job, you've paid your taxes, you pay back taxes," Biden said. "You have a tamper-proof card you go back to the area of embarkation. To be able to be registered you have a criminal background check."

The process would be "a path made available to people that demonstrate they are good citizens," Biden said. The process would stretch out over a decade. "That's about how long it would take," he said.

During the event that spanned more than hour, Biden talked about pulling troops out of Iraq, using language that presaged the 2021 bungled U.S. exit from Afghanistan. 

"It will take a year to get the American troops out," Biden said. 

"You hear me now, that's the truth," he said, as captured in a C-Span news clip now circulating on social media. "It will take a year to get them physically out. Now if you leave all the equipment behind, you might be able to do it in seven months. And you leave those billions of dollars of weapons behind, I promise they're going to be used against your grandchild and mine some day."

After Biden assumed the presidency in 2021, his administration oversaw the rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. In the process, the American military abandoned equipment that reportedly includes armored vehicles, machine guns, rifles, pistols, artillery and, according to a BBC report, a variety of aircraft, including light attack planes and attack helicopters. The estimated value has ranged into the billions of U.S. dollars.

The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.