Today is the third anniversary of the deadly American withdrawal from Afghanistan, when a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport killed 13 service members in the most humiliating foreign policy failure of the Biden administration. Not one senior official resigned or was fired.
The same major members of the foreign policy team in the White House today, including the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the national security adviser, remain in their roles despite the debacle in Afghanistan — a debacle from which the president’s approval rating never recovered.
Former President Donald Trump commemorated the event with a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, where he was joined by family members of some of the soldiers killed at the Abbey Gate attack in Kabul.
“This is the third anniversary of the BOTCHED Afghanistan withdrawal, the most EMBARRASSING moment in the history of our Country,” Trump wrote in an online post Monday morning. “Gross Incompetence — 13 DEAD American soldiers, hundreds of people wounded and dead, AMERICANS and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF MILITARY EQUIPMENT LEFT BEIND.”
“Russia then invaded Ukraine, Israel was attacked, and the USA became, and is, a laughing stock all over the World,” Trump added.
The Taliban marked the anniversary this month with a military parade featuring millions (and perhaps billions) of dollars in U.S. gear, complete with helicopters and armored vehicles to display the triumph over what is supposed to be the world’s most powerful nation.
Trump highlighted the parade at a campaign rally as an illustration of Vice President Kamala Harris’ ineptitude in dealing with foreign affairs. Harris bragged on CNN three years ago about being the last person in the room to advise the commander-in-chief on the botched withdrawal.
“Were you the last person in the room?” Dana Bash asked the vice president.
“Yes,” Harris said.
“And you feel comfortable?” Bash pressed.
“I do,” Harris responded.
“Two days ago,” Trump said in Pennsylvania earlier this month, “I watched a parade of the Taliban in Afghanistan. … They were showing all of our equipment they took from America. … [Kamala Harris] bragged about being the last person in the room that night, the night that they decided” to withdraw.
The chaos in Afghanistan was so traumatic for former military members that the Department of Veterans Affairs released an outline of resources for veterans coping with the scenes from overseas.
“Veterans who served in Afghanistan may be experiencing a range of challenging emotions related to the U.S withdrawal from the country and the events unfolding now,” the department said just days before the bombing that killed 13. “Veterans who served during other conflicts may also be feeling strong emotions as they may be reminded of their own deployment experiences.”
[The Veterans Crisis Line is “988” then press “1”]
According to a report in February, however, President Biden doesn’t think anyone in his administration did anything wrong.
“No one offered to resign,” Politico reporter Alexander Ward wrote in a book, “in large part because the president didn’t believe anyone had made a mistake.”
In fact, a report from the Biden administration last year blamed Trump for the botched withdrawal.
“Transitions matter,” national security spokesman John Kirby said. “That’s the first lesson learned here. And the incoming administration wasn’t afforded much of one.”
“The fact that no one has been fired,” Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said on a press call with reporters Monday afternoon, “suggests that we have a real crisis of leadership in this country.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill, however, have stalled a comprehensive investigation into the administration’s failures over Afghanistan. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has been so slow that a senior investigator on the panel resigned in protest of the probe’s progress. Jerry Dunleavy, a former investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner and co-author of Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End, wrote in his resignation letter earlier this month that “investigative leads have been repeatedly stymied by our chief investigator and by senior staff.”
