AFGHANISTAN AFTER ACTION REPORT IS BULLSHIT
I am deeply offended by the unclassified version of the heavily redacted, self-congratulatory “After Action Review on Afghanistan” published by the U.S. Department of State.
By the Biden administration’s own admission, it abandoned over a thousand Americans and thousands of Afghan allies in Afghanistan, where they we trapped behind enemy lines and vulnerable to the murderous Taliban.
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While most of our report is focused on “lessons learned” and ways in which the Department could better prepare for such events in the future, we were reminded time and again that the Department’s greatest asset is its people, including an extraordinary group of dedicated and talented professionals who worked tirelessly on the ground in Kabul, in Washington, and at other sites domestically and abroad to evacuate and assist as many people as possible. We salute them and the brave members of our military, 13 of whom lost their lives in this operation. Together, they safely evacuated roughly 125,000 people, including nearly 6,000 private U.S. citizens. Their work deserves our highest praise and gratitude, and it is to them that this report is dedicated. We end this After Action Review where we began, with praise and admiration for our colleagues throughout the Department. We have made a series of recommendations for ways in which we think the Department could better prepare for future complex crises, but in the final analysis, there is no substitute for the smart, hard-working, dedicated professionals that the Department could count upon in this crisis. We should be proud of what they and their partners in uniform accomplished during this evacuation and what they continue to do to help U.S. citizens and at-risk Afghans in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover. [OCS: The hasty, ill-timed, and chaotic surrender of Afghanistan, including the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and security forces, lacked proper planning, coordination, and preparation, which resulted in a vacuum of power and the Taliban's swift takeover of critical areas, including taking possession of billions in sophisticated weaponry which they then converted to the reign of terror on the Afghan population, with some of the most sophisticated weaponry sent to China, Russia, and elsewhere for disassembly and reverse engineering. To praise those who botched the withdrawal and loaded thousands of unvetted Afghans, including terrorists, for import into the United States is an abomination. We will likely be forced to revisit the Taliban to combat future terrorist threats.] |
There is little doubt that the Afghan surrender to the Taliban was a political operation run out of the White House.
During the catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal, it appears that the military ceded operational control to State Department apparatchiks acting on behalf of the White House, with the decision-making process and coordination led by incompetent and ill-prepared government officials, including:
- President: Joe Biden was the President of the United States during the withdrawal.
- Secretary of State: Antony Blinken played a significant role in overseeing the diplomatic aspects of the withdrawal.
- Secretary of Defense: Lloyd Austin was responsible for coordinating the military aspects of the withdrawal.
- Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman: General Mark A. Milley provided military advice and recommendations to the President and the Secretary of Defense.
- National Security Advisor: Jake Sullivan advised the President on national security matters, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The real lessons of Afghanistan…
Leadership: America needs competent, capable leaders.
Clear Objectives: One of the key factors contributing to America's failure in Afghanistan was the lack of clear and achievable objectives. Over time, the mission shifted from targeting Al-Qaeda to nation-building, leading to a lack of focus and diffusion of resources. Without a well-defined goal, the effort in Afghanistan became increasingly messy and challenging to sustain. It became a piggy bank for private contractors interested in protracted hostilities to keep the funding flowing.
Long-Term Engagement: The protracted military engagement in Afghanistan, with its heavy reliance on conventional warfare, clearly did not produce the desired outcomes, as the military leadership was more interested in relaxing our rules of engagement to favor the enemy to win over hearts and minds of a people who were tribal, had no concept of democracy, and viewed us just another foreign invader of their country.
Corruption and Weak Governance: Despite substantial financial and military support, rampant, systemic corruption and weak governance within the Afghan government undermined efforts to build stable institutions and win the trust of the Afghan people. Nobody could figure out how to establish an effective governance structure that worked with people loyal to their tribes and clans rather than to a national government.
Regional Dynamics: The involvement of neighboring countries, such as Pakistan and Iran, complicated efforts to stabilize the region. The Taliban was a creation of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, and Iran provided extremely dangerous IEDs with impunity. We took no action against a nuclear-armed Pakistan, even after they hid Osama bin Laden.
No Truth: The American people will never be told the ugly truth and must rely on sanitized, whitewashed reports that protect the guilty from being held accountable by diffusing blame to “the system.” Yes, they may acknowledge mistakes, but nobody is punished. Remember the joint CIA/State Department's gun-running operation in Benghazi, Libya?
Bottom line…
How many Americans will note that the report was released under the media's radar ahead of a long Fourth of July weekend on a Friday night? Or that the 25-page report is a sanitized and prettified mini-production that belies the full ugliness of the actual report with 60 pages of redactions?
It should not be surprising that the report appears to apportion blame to both the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration although the Biden Administration was clearly in charge and almost always refused to implement any Trump plan of action.
Remember the White House summary document released in April that blamed the Trump administration’s decisions for creating the conditions that led to the chaos of the evacuation and did not mention the multiplicity of mistakes in decision-making by incompetent government actors.
Since the election of Barack Obama, the communist-in-chief, no progressive communist democrat can be trusted with the security, safety, and defense of the United States. We are now pumping billions of dollars into a corrupt Ukraine with no clear objective or endpoint. Many of the same people involved in Afghanistan are also engaged in Ukraine – which appears to be another corrupt State Department operation.
We are so screwed.
-- Steve
“Nullius in verba”-- take nobody's word for it!
"Acta non verba" -- actions not words
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”-- George Bernard Shaw
“Progressive, liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Democratic Socialist -- they are all COMMUNISTS.”
“The key to fighting the craziness of the progressives is to hold them responsible for their actions, not their intentions.” – OCS "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims... but accomplices” -- George Orwell “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." (The people gladly believe what they wish to.) ~Julius Caesar “Describing the problem is quite different from knowing the solution. Except in politics." ~ OCS