According to many military sources, a rumor went out that the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division has told the British special forces commander at the Kabul airport to end operations beyond the perimeter of the airport.
Major General Christopher Donahue told his counterpart of the British Army, who is a high-ranking field-grade officer of the British army’s 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, that the British operations going on to get their people out of Afghanistan are embarrassing the United States military because the US military is not performing similar operations, according to numerous military sources. And rightly so, the British officer firmly rejected his request.
Colonel Joe Buccino, a spokesman for the XVIII Airborne Corps, denied that Donahue even made the request.
“The XVIII Airborne Corps denies the central thrust of this story,” the spokesman said. “Specifically, General Chris Donahue, whose sole focus is security at HKIA, never made such a request to any British Army officials and would have no motive for doing so.”
But with incompetent boobs like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin running things, can you believe him? Do we know what to believe coming from this administration?
The US commanders on the ground in Afghanistan realize they’ve been given a real pig dog assignment where they were told to withdraw from the country with no plan to get the American people and our Afghan allies out and to leave our military equipment behind of which is a significant amount.
This reflects the tensions between US and British military leaders inside Kabul. The stress of trying to extract thousands of people from Kabul airport with a growing situation of increasing terrorist threats is enough to cause strife in the field. They know that the Islamic State (ISIS) and more-than-likely al Qaedaoperatives are working in proximity to the Kabul airport outside the command structure of the Taliban. The US and British commanders know that no such deal, shaky as the one struck with the Taliban is, exists with the other terrorist groups. They have their work cut out for them.
Because of President Joe Biden, the US military has abandoned the Bagram airbase which has increased the problems getting people out of the country. Unlike the Kabul airport in the city of millions, Bagram has two air strips and it situated in an area that is much more secure. Bagram is a little over an hour’s drive from Kabul and only a 20 minute chopper flight. Troops could have flown Americans to Bagram to triple the effort of getting people on planes and out of the country.
On top of those problems, the British military has more latitude to operate inside Kabul than US military, again, thanks to the “yes men” leaders who went along with Biden’s orders with no pushback.
It’s being reported that the SAS has run operations to bring American citizens back with British citizens through the Taliban-controlled checkpoints to the airport. This is not a reflection of our military’s capabilities to get our people out, even though Austin and Milley covered for their incompetent Commander-in-Chief by saying we do not have that capability. Rather, it’s a reflection on the weakness of our military of political leaders.
Our allies are beginning to wonder why US forces aren’t doing more to help deal with the Taliban to get more people through to the airport.
There is a skirmish going on between the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department that is allowing the politics to disrupt the evacuation efforts in Kabul. The smart thing to do would be for the politicians to get the hell out of the way and let the military commanders on the ground do their job. They know how to do evacuations and they would do a superior job except that the Joe Bidens, the Mark Milleys and the Lloyd Austins are standing in their way. It’s really that simple. One group is fighting with another group over the optics. No one wants to take the blame for the fustercluck that Biden caused in Afghanistan.
The fact that the White House and the Pentagon are being tight-lipped on what their real intentions are is causing our allies real grief, because they understand that only the US military can provide the airfield defense and the air traffic control services that are needed right now.
Our allies are reassessing the competence of the Biden administration for how they handled the Afghanistan withdrawal and there are now serious concerns about the administration’s credibility.
This entire evacuation has harmed the US in the eyes of the world, but at least there are no more mean tweets, right?
