Afghan debacle worse than first reported

 David Harsanyi:

As the Biden administration’s chaotic and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan was unfolding in August 2021, a suicide bomber murdered 13 American servicemembers, and at least 170 Afghans, at the Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport. It was one of the deadliest attacks on our troops in our 20 years in that nation.

“Know this,” Biden said after the bombing. “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” This turned out to be face-saving political theater. Three days later, an air strike killed ten Afghans, seven of them children. Not one of the dead, as far as we know, was an “ISIS facilitator,” as the administration had alleged.

In fact, the Pentagon now says that the bombing was the work of a lone terrorist rather than a “complex” network, as the Biden administration had initially maintained. At the time, General Mark Milley not only referred to the strike as “valid” and “righteous” — let’s concede for a moment that he was basing this on the best available information — but went further to describe a “secondary explosion” and a supposed plethora of evidence justifying the bombing. None of that, it seems, was true. It seems increasingly likely that Biden was going to blow someone up to project his toughness.

The more we learn about the administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, the more it becomes clear that its decisions were driven by political considerations and panic. Here, for example, is a snippet from ProPublica’s recent investigation into the Kabul suicide bombing:

Days before the final withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, thousands of desperate Americans and Afghan allies seeking to flee the country were using unguarded routes across open fields and through narrow alleys to reach one of the few gates providing access to the Kabul airfield.

Despite intelligence warning of terrorist attacks, U.S. military commanders encouraged use of the routes. Some U.S. officials even provided maps to evacuees trying to bypass Taliban fighters stationed at a checkpoint outside the airport.

The fact that the murderer of 13 Americans “likely” gained access to troops via a path that U.S. officials were encouraging people to use seems quite noteworthy. As does the fact that we were helping evacuees circumvent the Taliban even as the Biden administration was assuring the public that the Islamic militants were facilitating the extraction of Americans.
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You will recall, as well, White House press secretary Jen Psaki risibly contending that no Americans had been “stranded” in Afghanistan. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would later say that there were “under 200” Americans remaining in Afghanistan who “want to leave.” A new Senate Foreign Relations Committee report from ranking member Jim Risch (R., Idaho), contends that State Department officials estimated that on August 17 there were 10,000–15,000 Americans trapped in Afghanistan. Over the subsequent two weeks, as the Afghan forces the United States had trained and funded for 20 years disintegrated, 6,000 Americans were able to escape. I’m not a math whiz, but that leaves a lot more than zero, or even 200, stranded. How many of those American citizens, green-card holders, or Afghan allies had their names handed to the Taliban? Were the interpreters on that list being hunted down or beheaded by Islamists?

The Pentagon investigation into the bombing — relying on hundreds of witness interviews, drone footage, and reports by medical examiners — also concluded that the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate was “not preventable,” words that recurred in headlines atop reports by the Associated Press and other outlets.

In truth, the attack became unpreventable only after the Biden administration evacuated secure positions without having extracted those who wanted to leave. When George Stephanopoulos asked Biden whether he was warned that adhering to the Taliban’s timeline would put lives in danger, Biden answered: “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.”

This was surely a lie. As the New York Times reported, American intelligence had warned Biden that Afghan security forces would not resist the Taliban for long, and that the American-allied government would not hold Kabul. Anonymous Defense Department officials told the Wall Street Journal that neither Secretary Lloyd Austin nor General Milley had much confidence in “over-the-horizon” counterterror strategy and that both had warned Biden to keep 2,500 troops to cover the withdrawal.
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According to Harsanyi the only service that did not warn Biden of the problems was the Coast Guard which did not have a role in Afghanistan.  What I still find remarkable is that none of the commanders were willing to resign rather than participate in such a disaster in the making.  The only one who did was a Marine Lt. Col who wasn't in the region and was drummed out of the service for pointing out the obvious. 

See, also:

Pentagon went ahead with Biden's Afghan withdrawal plan despite 'preferring other options', State Department didn't take Taliban seriously and 'intoxicated' diplomat staffers 'cowered' as Kabul fell: Report details military fury at administration