Former SEAL Speaks Out Against Afghanistan Withdrawal

Ghazni,,Afghanistan,-,November,2010:,Isaf,Forces,Patrol,The,Roads — GHAZNI, AFGHANISTAN - NOVEMBER 2010: ISAF forces patrol the roads in the mountains of Afghanistan in armored military vehicles in RC East.

(RightWing.org) – A former Navy SEAL turned Republican candidate has blasted the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the congressional hearing that’s now underway. Tim Sheehy, who’s running for the Senate, said there’s no accountability for the way the US abandoned its own citizens, pulling its forces out with no warning. He warned that the way the withdrawal was handled has encouraged our enemies.

On March 19 two retired senior officers, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Mark Milley and former US Central Command chief General Kenneth McKenzie, spoke to the House Foreign Affairs Committee as part of the inquiry that began last year. During the hearing Milley said the State Department had been warned a month before the chaotic withdrawal –- which saw US troops pulled out with no warning to their ISAF and Afghan allies –- that it was likely to have deadly consequences. Commenting on the hearing, Sheehy, the Republican candidate for a Montana Senate seat, said this showed the administration had ignored the military’s concerns.

Sheehy went on to say “accountability has not yet been restored” after the Afghan disaster. He said no generals or administration officials have been fired, despite the withdrawal sparking a panic that led to deadly riots at Kabul airport and triggering the collapse of Afghanistan’s suddenly abandoned security forces. He also warned that the disaster “sent a message of weakness around the world.”

Democrats are trying to defend the handling of the withdrawal, pointing out that the decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan was originally made by former president Donald Trump. However, it isn’t the fact we brought our troops home that bothers Sheehy; it’s the way the Biden administration did it. He said Democrats did “the exact same thing in Iraq,” blaming things that happened under the Obama administration on President GW Bush. What Sheehy wants is for the US government to “improve as an organization” –- and he doesn’t see any signs that’s happening.