“Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End” by Jerry Dunleavy and James Hasson, is a supremely important book that everyone should read to get a sense of the breadth and scope of the failures of the Biden administration during the Afghanistan evacuation.

It was also a book that was extremely hard to read. Not because of its writing style, but because the content made me so angry that I frequently had to put the book down after marking several pages (with Post-it note tabs) to catch my breath and process what I had just read. The withdrawl from Afghanistan, and the horrific suicide bombing at Abbey Gate that claimed the lives of 13 American servicemen and women, only happened two years ago. This blog covered in real time the events that happened surrounding the withdrawl, and the horrific chaos that ensued. However, “Kabul” is a deep dive into the full background story of what was happening behind the scenes, and even for those of us who were watching the withdrawl devolve before our eyes, the absolute shitstorm happening behind the scenes will still make any reader absolutely furious.

The target of the reader’s ire should certainly begin with Joe Biden, who was so singularly focused on leaving Afghanistan that he ignored all precautions, advice, and dissent. As we have seen repeatedly with Biden and his advisors, their only concern is optics. The administration wanted the optics of ending Afghanistan, and they were going to get it. But when it became obvious that the optics were going sideways, they tried to change tactics mid-stream – which, naturally, created more chaos. The Biden administration wanted a big number of evacuees to tout to the press – and the vetting process went straight out the window, leading to a domino effect that allowed a bomber to get to Abbey Gate.

As a result, there is plenty of blame to be spread among Joe Biden’s administration, especially among those in the State Department – who, to this day, refuse to accept blame for their failures. And as “Kabul” informs us, the State Department bureaucrats did not want to get their hands dirty, or deal with the unwashed masses who were attempting to storm the airport once they left the embassy.

Members of the Biden administration privately admitted to us that State had no prepared strategy for tracking or processing stranded Americans. A Biden State Department official who participated in the evacuation efforts vented that “It just never really looked like there was a plan,” even though the evacuation had become increasingly foreseeable over the previous months. The ever-changing guidance put the Marines into a gut-wrenching position. They were forced to escort people out of HKIA minutes or hours after admitting them and telling them they had been approved for evacuation. … This bureaucratic bungling damaged the trust between the troops and the diplomats charged with organizing the evacuation. As one Marine summed it up, “The State Department really pissed us off.”

Consular officials often failed to show up to the gates to process evacuees – even though that was their job. … When the bureaucrats did show, according to the troops on the ground, they usually remained at their posts only until their shifts were technically over, *even if no one arrived to relieve them* (emphasis in the original). It is impossible to punch a time clock in a war zone. But apparently no one had told the bureaucrats to stay on the job. The service members guarding the gates and trying to evacuate Americans and SIV applicants often worked more than twelve hours in a row under a broiling sun, with little temperature relief at night. The air was foul, the situation fraught, and the dangers real, but not one of them would have considered leaving their post until relieved.

The State Department officials, however, treated their duties like shift work at the local DMV. They arrived for their four-hour shift, punched in, and then left as soon as the clock struck the magic hour, evacuees be damned.

Incredibly, State Department officials sometimes went to the gates to tell the troops they weren’t doing enough. Their arrogance was astounding. … The diplomats, according to military officers, were afraid of the crowds. The situation was dangerous, dirty, and tense – but so was all of Kabul, for that matter. When they deigned to show up – to instruct the Marines – who to admit for processing – each diplomat was flanked by two armed members of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. One of the Marine platoon sergeants working the gates recalled an incident when a risk-averse consular officer “wouldn’t come within 50 meters of the gate.” He added that they “bottom line is these guys wouldn’t interact with the Afghans unless they were away from the line.” The lack of cooperation made a difficult evacuation nearly impossible at times. (Chapter Eight, “Seeing Things That No Person Should Have To See,” selections from pages 142-144)

However, the blame for what did happen in Afghanistan can be spread to two State Departments. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is fingered for trying to put a happy face on the Doha Agreement, while also admitting that the Taliban would never fulfill the conditions for withdrawl. Both administrations employed a “special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation,” Zalmay Khalilzad, better known as “Zal,” who was “a unique combination of mendacity and ineptitude,” and spent his time sucking up to both the United States and the Taliban. Jake Sullivan, National Secutiry Advisor for Joe Biden, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, are both called “naive” – and their public actions bear out that assessment.

Shockingly, Dunleavy and Hasson reveal that President Donald Trump nearly ordered a full withdrawl from Afghanistan, via a signed directive after Election Day, which would have had all troops leaving by January 15, 2021. Can you imagine what that would have looked like, five days before Inauguration Day??? Fortunately, Trump was talked out of it by multiple advisors, because they told him “that it would look terrible if one of the final images of his presidency was of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan” (Chapter Two, “Doha,” page 20). Biden, however, was bound and determined to leave Afghanistan, and even though General Mark Milley had helped talk Donald Trump out of an immediate withdrawl, he was right there when Biden did it anyway. You can draw your own conclusions about Milley, and his actions before, during, and after the debacle of leaving Afghanistan.

“Kabul” goes into great detail about the attack on Abbey Gate. It isn’t just about the men and women who died there, but also the fact that intelligence KNEW there was going to be an attack, and when the Marines spotted a man matching the description of the suspected attacker, they were denied permission to take him out. Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was grievously wounded in the bombing that killed thirteen American servicemembers, later testified to Congress about what happened, and his testimony is included in the book.

The book also takes the time to name and honor each of the thirteen who were killed, and also point out how angry and disrespected the Gold Star Families felt when Joe Biden could not shut up about losing Beau. Those families have recently given testimony to Congress (well after this book went to print) venting their anger, and it is worth hearing again in their own voices, because many of the families talked to Dunleavy and Hasson and said the exact same things to them.

Cheryl Rex, mother of Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola:

"When [Biden] approached me, his words to me were, 'My wife, Jill & I, know how you feel. We lost our son as well and brought him home in a flag draped coffin.'"

"My heart started beating faster & I started shaking, knowing that… pic.twitter.com/lLMRokjEdY

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) August 7, 2023

Wow. Mark Schmitz, whose son was killed in Kabul during the Biden Afghanistan withdrawal, goes scorched earth.

Says the admin has the families "knee-deep in bullshit," Biden is a "disgrace" to the United States, and Blinken/Austin need to "pack up their shit" and resign. pic.twitter.com/q1dWugT9an

— Dylan Housman (@Dylan_Housman) August 29, 2023

“Kabul” is a comprehensive and deep dive into what went wrong, how badly it went wrong, and how those responsible have tried to wash their hands of any consequences, even as the consequences have played out on the international stage with the Russian invasion into Ukraine and China’s continued aggression against Taiwan. It has so many details that I can’t even list them all here – details that will shock and enrage you. This book will leave you angry. Very, very angry. And the person who ultimately deserves that anger is Joe Biden. This doddering old fool should be forced to own up to his failures in Afghanistan, which not only cost the lives of 13 servicemen and women, but also the abandonment of hundreds of Americans, and condemning Afghans who had worked with the United States to death at the hands of the Taliban.

Read this book. Get angry. Then share this book. The dead deserve some justice.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click