An Open Letter To The Joint Chiefs And The Secretary of Defense - Resign

My father was a career military officer. At the age of 22, he was in the battle of Okinawa, and he spent 30 years thereafter in the service of the United States Navy.

Dad taught me what I consider to be the core principles of being a United States military officer. Sleep last if you sleep at all. Eat last if you eat at all. Never ask anyone to do anything not just that you wouldn’t do yourself but that you have not already done yourself. Never lie. Accept responsibility. Credit goes to the men and women under your command. Blame - you shoulder personally.

You are in command. Command.

If you ever understood these principles, you gentlemen seem to have long ago forgotten them.

The White House recently issued a lengthy document detailing its assessment of what happened during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. It is a nauseating and disgusting stew of lies.

This document was issued by the White House. It most certainly must, however, have been coordinated with the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense. You either agreed with its conclusions or you stood by silently while this obscenity was crafted.

No one would expect you to speak up publicly and disagree with the President while still in uniform or in office. They would expect and, in fact, demand that you express yourselves forcefully in official channels and that you would resign rather than stand by and allow the memory of all those who have fallen to be disgraced by this abomination.

The document trotted out by the White House is built on a simple foundation. It is all Trump’s fault. Joe Biden is responsible for nothing.

Donald Trump left office in January 2021. Kabul fell seven months later. From the moment he sat down in the Oval Office, Joe Biden was the commander-in-chief. Joe Biden was in charge. Joe Biden made the decisions that resulted in the disgraceful and disastrous debacle the whole world watched live.

Biden is responsible for this disaster and all the consequences thereof. You know that. You understand that. And, yet, you stand apparently in full support of this transparent and disgraceful lie.

You also know that the flight from Kabul was conducted in a manner that was militarily indefensible. You know as we do that the military recommended the deployment of significant assets to Bagram to support the withdrawal. You know that only by the grace of God did anyone get out of Kabul alive. You understand fully that the only reason that happened is that we, in effect, went to the Taliban on bended knee and asked them to not interfere with our withdrawal.

In the end, we were reduced to begging the Taliban to let us go.

Perhaps most importantly, there is literally no reference in this document to the long-term implications of what happened.  We have created a terrorist super state. The Taliban have once again provided Al Qaida and a host of other terrorist groups with safe haven. The Pakistani Taliban operates with impunity from bases in Afghanistan and increasingly threatens the stability of Pakistan. We face the very real prospect of Islamic radicals seizing control of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

The Taliban are stronger than ever. They have billions of dollars worth of sophisticated arms we supplied. The Taliban are in bed now with the Communist Chinese. Chinese intelligence officers are on the ground in country. Chinese engineers are putting airbases in Afghanistan that we built back in operation to support their forces.

The stability of South Asia is threatened. Attacks on us here in the United States are only a matter of time.

The War For Pakistan Has Begun

The final paragraph in the White House statement begins as follows.

“More broadly, when the President made the decision to leave Afghanistan, some worried that doing so could weaken our alliances or put the United States at a disadvantage on the global stage. The opposite has happened. Our standing around the world is significantly greater, as evidenced by multiple opinion surveys. Our alliances are stronger than ever.”

Every one of you knows that this statement is untrue and that the dangers we face right now as a republic are truly existential. Every one of you understands that unless we change course radically and rapidly a great many Americans are going to die as the result of Biden’s decision to cut and run in Afghanistan.

We have virtually no capacity to collect intelligence on the ground in Afghanistan. We have no ability at all to meaningfully interdict the growth of the terrorist enterprise there. For twenty years men fought and died to prevent Afghanistan from ever again becoming a launching pad for attacks on this nation. You stood by and allowed their memory to be disgraced and their sacrifice rendered meaningless.

Now, you stand silent while an administration run by incompetents and traitors lies about how it all happened and who bears the responsibility. If anywhere inside each of you there is any memory of the oath you once swore and what it means you will do the only honorable thing. You will resign, all of you, and you will do it now.