The Defense Department has ordered a “comprehensive review” of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 “that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. Service members and 170 civilians in a suicide bombing at the Kabul International Airport’s Abbey Gate.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that a three-month review of the withdrawal has led him to the conclusion that more answers are needed.
The withdrawal was ordered by President Trump during his first term but executed by the Biden administration after two decades of pointless war in Afghanistan that the Bush administration knew it could not win. It begs the question as to whether or not there was ever a way to withdraw properly from such an epic loss. Could the lesson here be not to dig into mud we cannot get out of?