The veterans who went to combat are enraged. It’s too bad that the Biden administration, and press lackey John Kirby, are ignoring them while attempting to blame others for the failures in Afghanistan.

Yes, I know John Kirby is a retired admiral. So? If anything, that should make him even more aware that the spin he tried to pull on Thursday was just insanely egregious. And the veterans who saw that are speaking out against both the Biden administration’s report, and Kirby himself.

Kirby held an at-times confrontational press conference Thursday where he defended the Biden administration’s withdrawal as largely successful and noted the after-action report’s purpose was “not accountability.”

“The purpose of the document that we’re putting out today is to sort of collate the chief reviews and findings of the agencies that did after action reviews,” he said, after Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked who might be “fired” over the chaos.”

“For all this talk of chaos. I just didn’t see it. Not from my perch,” Kirby said later in the presser, adding that at one point in the evacuation, planes were departing Hamid Karzai International Airport every 48 minutes with Afghans and Americans alike aboard.”

“[N]ot one single mission was missed. So I’m sorry. I just don’t buy the whole argument of chaos,” he said.”

As was pointed out on the day of the presser, that’s not what Kirby said during the withdrawl.

Afghanistan withdrawal:

John Kirby, August 24, 2021: "those first few days…. last Monday, the physical crush and chaos"

John Kirby, April 6, 2023: "For all this talk of chaos, I just didn't see it!"https://t.co/tvVLVUqME8https://t.co/qvf0oWBIuE pic.twitter.com/tPraT5BnGR

— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) April 6, 2023

It’s things like this – the obvious spin, the lying, the attempt to shift the blame to someone other than the man sitting in the Oval Office at the time of the withdrawl (a withdrawl that was made against advice) – that have veterans so fired up. Joey Jones, in particular, spoke up on the day of the presser, and has been vocal ever since.

This coward can’t even say their names. But he’s proud of this “imperfect operation.” Thank you @pdoocy

https://t.co/SYBkEYlqtd pic.twitter.com/AhMeorUPTQ

— Joey Jones (@Johnny_Joey) April 6, 2023

But many other veterans are equally horrified by Kirby.

(Chad) Robichaux characterized Kirby as someone who knew his remarks were not entirely accurate regarding facts on the ground, and said the American people see through the administration’s “lies.”

“It is no shocker when Biden or his clown-show press secretaries lie, but to have a former U.S. Navy admiral do the same is a national tragedy,” Robichaux said.”

“As a fellow veteran it makes me sad to see former military leaders turn on our citizens for personal and political gain.”

He called the presentation of Kirby as a retired flag officer and military adviser “one of the biggest lies in this week’s brief,” pointing to his most recent roles as a spokesperson in the Obama and Biden administrations and as an analyst for CNN.”

“He is a long way from 1986 when he raised his hand in an oath to serve the American people,” Robichaux charged. “His loyalty is to protecting corrupt politicians in DC — not the people.”

Robichaux’s group, Save Our Allies, was also instrumental in rescuing Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall after he had been gravely wounded in Ukraine.”

Retired Green Beret Scott Mann, whose “Task Force: Pineapple” also executed civilian evacuations within Afghanistan, told Fox News on Friday the reported lack of proverbial ‘lessons learned’ was “egregious.”

“I’ve been talking to veterans and veterans groups all morning about this. And one of the reasons that I think that veterans are so upset about this is like my friend… an Afghanistan combat veteran, says, it’s not about what happened,” Mann said on “The Story.”

“[T]he absence of accountability: What worries veterans so much is that we’ve got all of these problems now with violent extremist groups coming up in Afghanistan. We’ve got a massive moral injury on our veteran population — And if you’re not willing to take accountability for your actions as a leader at any level, then there’s a real good chance you’re not going to take any actions to fix what happened.”

On Friday, retired Lt. Col. Danny Davis disagreed with the claims of lack of “chaos,” telling “America Reports” that there is no way to categorize what was happening on the ground in Kabul in August 2021 other than chaos.”

“I don’t know what definition of ‘not chaos’ you can have when you have those images that are iconic … where people are chasing the aircraft as it is driving across the tarmac… ad of course, the catastrophic explosion that killed a lot of U.S. Marines,” Davis said.”

It is a truth widely acknowledged within the military that the higher the rank, the more political the job becomes, and the bigger the disconnect between the soldier, sailor, or Marine on the ground. It seems pretty obvious that Kirby, having lived in the rarefied political air of Washington DC in two Democrat administrations and having been a spokesman for the Navy before that, hasn’t gotten his hands dirty with the rank-and-file for quite a while now. It’s little wonder that veterans are so outraged watching him try to explain away the deaths of 13 servicemembers as “not chaos.”

And as for accountability, we have known for a long time that the Biden administration has every intention of avoiding any measure of accountability. No one was fired and no one was demoted for the disgrace that was the Afghanistan withdrawl, and when an innocent civilian family was droned in Kabul, no one was fired or demoted for that either. Who cares about innocent Afghan civilians! It’s not like they voted for Joe Biden, right???

Any day now, Joe Biden is going to announce his re-election campaign (because there is no way that Jill doesn’t run him and the Democrats have no other viable options). When that happens, veterans need to raise their voices and demand accountability from Biden over Afghanistan. Their anger should be the gauntlet that Grandpa Joe will have to shuffle through in order to stand on that debate stage once more. And when that day comes, John Kirby won’t be standing there, attempting to spin chaos into gold for the old man.

Featured image: military boots, dog tags, flag royalty free 1392591209 via Shutterstock, cropped and modified