Doocy; You’re saying you guys are proud of the way this mission was conducted?
Kirby: Proud of the fact that we got more than 124k people safely out of Afghanistan? You bet… pic.twitter.com/2hMROLOGjU— Acyn (@Acyn) April 6, 2023
Not my usual upbeat early-morning fare, but we were taught on Good Friday that sometimes the only way forward is to march through hell.
It’s good our military is officially out, and that’s the best can be said at this moment.
To say the withdrawal from Afghanistan was "chaotic" is a tautology, not a serious criticism of Biden. There was no non-"chaotic" option on the table, and Biden was correct to realize that the only actual alternative to "chaos" was perpetual war https://t.co/0RhHTyYXSq
— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) April 6, 2023
… The White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the so-called “ hotwash ” of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation’s longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that Biden was “severely constrained” by Trump’s decisions.
It does acknowledge that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but blames the delays on the Afghan government and military, and on U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.
The brief document was drafted by the National Security Council, rather than by an independent entity, with input from Biden himself. The administration said detailed reviews conducted by the State Department and the Pentagon, which the White House said would be transmitted privately to Congress on Thursday, were highly classified and would not be released publicly.
Friday Morning Open Thread: Afghanistan, Graveyard of *Stubborn* EmpiresPost + Comments (159)