The lies and coverup of Biden's disastrous Afghan bug out

 Clarice Feldman:

This week we were treated to a bloody horror show at Kabul Airport and a preposterous performance (a full day late) by a President who claimed responsibility and then quickly proceeded to shun it, blaming everyone else . As commander in chief, he was responsible for the disastrous consequences of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan by a plan only an idiot would have conceived or endorsed. What followed were continued lies from the Department of State, General Mark Milley, and probably the Department of Defense. Only individual Americans stood fast to preserve our tattered honor.

The Biden Bug Out Plan was exactly the opposite of the plan President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had crafted. In that plan, our well-fortified base at Bagram, some 40 miles from Kabul, was to be the last thing shuttered. In Biden’s plan, it was the first. He had our troops turn off the lights and leave in the middle of the night without warning to the Afghani government, doubtless encouraging the rapid Taliban advance to Kabul. The President blamed the military for this decision, and General Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, seemed to concur, although even as he fell on his sword there was wiggle room, for he predicated it on the need to get the troops down to about 600 or 700, a decision only Biden could have made.  Essentially a military briefer conceded this by asserting the mission to withdraw was Biden’s and the emphasis on giving priority to protecting the embassy was also his. The Wall Street Journal explains how disastrous this nonsensical order of departure was.

The way U.S. forces quietly slipped out of Bagram was also demoralizing for the Afghan army and probably contributed to its collapse. The Associated Press spoke to soldiers wandering the base the next day. “They lost all the goodwill of 20 years,” one said, “by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area.” The word must have spread: If the U.S. is abandoning its prized air base, then it really was bugging out altogether.

After the collapse of the Afghan government, Mr. Biden could have sent in enough U.S. troops to retake Bagram and provide for a safer evacuation. He declined that option in favor of getting to the exits as fast as possible, hoping to avoid a confrontation with the Taliban that could result in American casualties. On Thursday he got casualties anyway.

The wreck of Mr. Biden’s Afghan withdrawal is damaging enough. But he compounds the harm to his credibility, and America’s, when he refuses to acknowledge mistakes and spins defeat as a victory for realism. Mr. Biden should take responsibility for his own bad decisions, instead of trying to hide behind the military brass.

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 Apparently Pakistani intelligence officers are assisting the Taliban’s Haqqani network in utilizing this tool.

As the work of the Haqqani Network becomes more visible, the Department of State, doubtless to bolster the administration’s claim that it had been fine to count on the Taliban’s pledge to secure the Kabul airport, asserted that the Taliban and Haqqani are “separate entities.” This is a new one and a likely bold- faced lie. Section 1217,FY 2021 NDAA (PL116-283) of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act is very clear: "The Taliban....(B) includes subordinate organizations, such as the Haqqani Network, and any successor organization.” At the Washington Examiner, Jerry Dunleavy spells out how ridiculous is the claim that these are separate entities.

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In a similar vein, active duty and retired naval intelligence officers are told they cannot “disrespect” the President over the Afghanistan debacle:. The ONI (Office of Naval Intelligence) directive even applies to civilian employees.

An internal ONI member told The Daily Wire that these policies were more relaxed under the Trump administration and recalled retired officers condemning the former President.

The more the senior officials try to button this up to cover for Biden, the more we lose any faith in them and the more obvious becomes the politicization of our military, the one domestic institution which still retained our faith and respect.

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It looks like the military and intelligence operations are already engaged in a coverup of one of the biggest screw-ups in world history.  I suspect they are counting on the Democrats in Congress to be complicit in this cover-up.  Such a move would add to the distrust of Democrats in what is looking like a disastrous election season for them in 2022.  What is obviously missing is any explanation for the screw-up by senior military officials.  It will be interesting to see whether Democrats have enough integrity to schedule Congressional hearings on this fiasco.