Don’t blame us! Late yesterday, the State Department tried to quietly dump their heavily redacted Afghanistan report to the news media. Essentially it wasn’t their fault they failed to plan for any and all aspects of the Afghanistan withdrawal!

As the report shows, they tried to blame President Trump for some of their failure to plan. But they also blame Joe Biden. Who tries to assert the evidence shows he was right … about what what I don’t know and neither does he.

Brazil's @Rkrahenbuhl: "Do you admit failure in Afghanistan?…There was a report…saying there was failure, mistakes. Do you admit there was mistakes during the withdrawal & before?

Biden: "No, no. All the evidence is coming back together…Read your press. I was right." pic.twitter.com/NL4pvHEhIX

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 30, 2023

Never mind the fact that Joe and the White House are on record trying to whitewash their own roles in the debacle, evidently it’s no one’s fault that this mess happened. 

Interestingly, much of the media seems skeptical of the timing of the release of this report. 

The rollout of the report had clear hallmarks of a calculated effort to mute its public impact. It was released on the Friday afternoon ahead of the July 4 holiday, as many in Washington were beginning vacations, and a background briefing for State Department reporters began minutes after the report was circulated to them, limiting their ability to ask detailed questions about its findings.

Well, yes. It is very calculated. The State Department was likely hoping very few people would notice this report. But people have and people are. While the report, which you can read in full here, tries to also praise those who worked at the State Department then, it also is more clear than they realize that no one there knew their ass from their elbows! 

Before the Afghan government’s collapse, “it was unclear who in the [State] Department had the lead” on preparations for a full evacuation of the country, the report found. It called the department’s participation in planning for an evacuation “hindered,” even though the U.S. military had been working on the effort ahead of the pullout.

Once the Taliban drew near Kabul and the United States began the full withdrawal, the Biden administration’s communications made the evacuation more chaotic and dangerous than it would have been otherwise, the report found.

“Constantly changing policy guidance and public messaging from Washington” about who was eligible to be relocated from Afghanistan “added to the confusion and often failed to take into account key facts on the ground,” it said. That exacerbated an already messy situation in which members of Congress, aid workers and others who had connections to Afghans were trying unilaterally to organize rescue missions for individuals and families, rather than allowing U.S. personnel on the ground to concentrate on a more systematic effort.

Here’s something else. The State Department KNEW that the withdrawal was going to happen sometime that summer. Then why the hell would they decide to rotate people out??!! Oh, and let’s blame Covid for not being prepared. 

Another item which the report tries to gloss over is the absolutely asinine decision made to close Baghram Airfield. The State Department continues to assert that they inherited a deadline but no plan. Excuse me, was NO ONE at that agency capable of coming up with a plan?? Evidently not. Instead they were sitting and spinning. 

Oh but guys, let’s not blame any one single person AT the State Department for their roles in this mess. 

Why would U.S. government officials not want to be named in a U.S. government report about the withdraw of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan? pic.twitter.com/2prYf3ofKl

— Jim LaPorta (@JimLaPorta) June 30, 2023

Nope. It’s everyone else’s fault we didn’t do our jobs. It’s everyone else’s fault that we failed to plan for any and all contingencies. It’s not our fault that our lack of work ethic, refusal to pay attention to actionable intelligence, and poor decision-making led to billions of dollars of military equipment being abandoned. It’s also not our fault that we didn’t really pay attention to the depth of the Taliban presence in the country!

Don’t blame us! We are awesome! 

The problem with the report, is this. The State Department KNEW there was an original date of May 2021 to start an orderly withdrawal. If I’m reading all of this correctly, they didn’t even start planning?? 

Guess what guys? That’s not a President Trump problem. That’s a State Department problem. Their failure to plan is their fault. They can TRY to blame everyone else or claim the withdrawal was largely successful, but the fact remains, they are as equally culpable for their role in this debacle and lives lost during the Afghanistan withdrawal. 

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Feature Photo Credit: Original artwork by Victory Girls Darleen Click