Congress learned more last week about the decisions surrounding the Biden administration’s disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan. One fact that is becoming clear: The decision to abandon Bagram Air Field is directly connected to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members, one of whom, Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, was my constituent.
The abandonment of Bagram is a red herring. What cost 13 US lives was the deliberate botching of the May 1 withdrawal deadline by the Biden Administration, the Biden Administration’s insistence upon abandoning 120,000+ civilians to the Taliban, and the Biden Administration’s complete refusal to alter their fundamentally flawed “plan” while watching the Taliban take over Afghanistan all summer long.
Our political, diplomatic, military, and intelligence Establishment never intended to leave Afghanistan. When the Establishment finally realized that the Americans did not want to damn yet another generation of high school graduates to the fate of dying for nothing in Afghanistan, the Establishment gave the Americans a big double-barrelled middle finger and ensured that Afghanistan immediately descended into chaos. Apart from spiting the Americans by showing us how everything our troops sacrificed for twenty years was absolutely in vain, the Establishment will use the ensuing chaos of their deliberately-botched withdrawal as their pretext for re-invading.
See also: ‘Afghanistan’s Situation Only Getting Worse; Need People On Ground’: EU Official