Afghanistan one year later; a shameful episode in the nation’s history

President Biden's evacuation decision continues to have effects

Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Maj. Gen. Donahue is the final American service member to depart Afghanistan; his departure closes the U.S. mission to evacuate American citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants, and vulnerable Afghans. (U.S. Army photo by Master Sgt. Alex Burnett)

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A year ago, President Joe Biden, made the decision to quickly evacuate our position in Afghanistan setting off a series of calamities, the most important of which was the killing of our 13 U.S. service men and women in Kabul, and for which he will never be held accountable.

What we know now.

The Taliban and Al-Qaeda, the organizations we went to Afghanistan to fight more than 20 years ago are back in control.  The Taliban controls all aspects of government and Al-Qaeda senior leaders have shown up in locations in Kabul controlled by the Taliban. All is as it was in 2001.

Retired Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command at the time of the evacuation, speaking on Fox News Sunday, made clear that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda want to continue the fight that was obstructed by the U.S. invasion.

"Both of those entities have a long-term aspirational goal to attack us in our homeland, and given the breathing room to reestablish themselves and reassert their strength we believe they will do that” he said.

Further, Biden went against advice from the chain of command in how and when he chose to evacuated Afghanistan. 

And then? He lied on national television, saying that “no one said that to me that I can recall” advising him to keep some troops on the ground.

Asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on August 19, 2021, about “warnings” by military advisors about the “timeline” and the desire to keep some troops on the ground, Biden simply denied the story.

STEPHANOPOULOS: “But your top military advisors warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.”

BIDEN: No, they didn't. It was split. Tha-- that wasn't true. That wasn't true.

To believe Biden, one has to believe that his commanders lied under oath to Congress.

We also now know that not a single person under the President was held accountable for any of the shortcomings outlined in the publicly released after-action-review, regarding the attack on our troops.

Additionally, the follow-on after-action-review about the subsequent killing of civilians following the attack on what was thought to be the perpetrators of the attack in Kabul also blamed no one.

What remains following the operations and the deaths are grieving families who know that much about this part of our history is not something the administration wants to deal with and in fact has moved past.

But there is more.

The world watched our inept actions and learned quickly.

Russia acted on its long-held desire to invade and confiscate Ukraine. While that action has not gone to plan for the Russian, President Vladimir Putin’s decision to move on Ukraine likely would not have come to fruition had he not seen what happened in Afghanistan.

China is making more than simply noise in the Pacific. Their talk of taking Taiwan, a long held desire, ratcheted up following Afghanistan. Other actions, such as essentially bullying the Solomon Islands into accepting a so-called “cooperation agreement” is a thinly veiled attempt to threaten Australia and other free countries in the area.

North Korea has “ramped up its missile testing to a record pace in 2022.” It is not clear what the U.S. is attempting to do to stop this action.

In case anyone thinks making such connections are merely partisan fantasy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley was forced to concede the possibility that the evacuation could be seen as a factor in Putin’s decision-making before his attack on Ukraine.

It is “possible” he told lawmakers.

That is an important acknowledgement and one no one in the White House will ever acknowledge publicly.

We know that no senior official stepped down over any part of the Afghanistan evacuation. Milley remains as chairman.  Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, largely an invisible figure in this and almost every situation, remains in office. As mentioned, McKenzie retired with his four stars intact. And, Biden, is in a media-created comeback of sorts.

Finally, we know we left Americans and Afghans who helped us behind.  What is still not clear is how many are still there and what we are doing to get them out.

Biden’s judgment has not improved. We saw in the decision-making on Afghanistan the real Joe Biden and the nation did not like what it saw. His polling has been damaged since that horrible episode in Afghanistan, with full justification.

The nation will have to decide whether his leadership and that of his fellow partisans who see no fault no matter how obvious should carry the day in the next elections.

James Hutton is a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army. Follow him on Twitter @jehutton, GETTR @jehutton, and Truth Social @jehutton