Perspective is everything. Just ask John Kirby.
On Thursday, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications revealed that he is proud of the way the Afghanistan withdrawal was conducted.
After months of delay, the White House finally released its summary of several different reports from the individual agencies that participated in the withdrawal.
CBS’s Ed O’Keefe didn’t mince words about the timing of the release.
“We want the record to reflect that this was sent to us about 10 minutes before the briefing began with little notice, and it’s the very definition of a modern major holiday news dump,” he huffed.
Kirby assured the reporter that there was no effort “to try to obfuscate or try to bury something.”
Whenever someone uses the word obfuscate, there is a good chance that obfuscating is exactly what they are trying to do.
But no amount of buzzwords was enough to satisfy the reporters in the briefing room. This must’ve come as a real shocker to Kirby who was expecting a pat on the back. After all, as he mentioned several times, the government agencies worked hard on this review — and did so voluntarily!
“I would argue that the very fact that we voluntarily — the agencies voluntarily decided to go conduct after-action reviews — nobody told them to do that. That wasn’t legislated by Congress. They did that on their own.”
The American people are supposed to be wildly impressed that these agencies wrote up reports to cover their asses and blame former President Donald Trump for their failures. Gold stars and ice cream sundaes for everyone!
Later, O’Keefe brought up a major discrepancy in the report. The document claims that the president accepted the “unanimous advice from his top national security officials” to end the evacuation on August 31st. However, General McKenzie has said that he objected to aspects of the withdrawal.
“So what’s the definition of a top national security official?” O’Keefe asked.
Naturally, the snake oil salesman for the most transparent administration in history pulled out one of the oldest tricks in the book.
“I am loath to get into the individual advice that individual members of the president’s team give him. That would not be appropriate for me.”
Ah, the classic “jeopardizing sources and methods” excuse. Say what you will about these clowns, but they are consistent.
Any information that might actually shed light on the Biden administration’s mushrooming disasters will always be considered too sensitive and top secret to reveal to the American people.
After a reporter asked Kirby if anyone was going to be held accountable for the President receiving bad intel, he replied, “I don’t know how much intelligence you read or you get to look at it every day, but let me tell you something: It’s a mosaic. It’s really hard.”
Translation?
Even if Kirby wasn’t “loath” to divulge real answers, we probably wouldn’t understand them anyway.
Just like with the supply chain crisis and inflation, this administration thinks that these matters are too complex for regular folks to wrap their puny brains around.
One thing that the administration is hoping us dummies can discern? That Orange Man Bad is responsible for everything that went wrong in Afghanistan.
That is why a third of the report was dedicated to shifting the blame to Trump.
Even NBC News White House Correspondent Kristen Welker couldn’t help but point out that “page after page” of the report “places the blame on the previous administration.”
“He came in with a certain set of circumstances he had no ability to change,” Kirby lamented. “He had to deal with it based on what he inherited.”
Remember folks, nothing is Joe Biden’s fault. He is a victim of circumstance.
The President has managed to blame his predecessor for inflation, East Palestine, the border, and everything in between… why not throw Kabul in there as well?
Considering Kirby thinks “there’s a lot to be proud of” in regard to Afghanistan, does that mean Trump deserves some credit too? Or is Orange Man only responsible for the parts of the withdrawal that — as Kirby described them — “weren’t perfect.”
But the real kicker in the press conference came when the admiral gave us his strange recollection of the ordeal.
“And so, for all this talk of chaos, I just didn’t see it, not from my perch,” he lectured the reporters.
“At one point during the evacuation, there was an aircraft taking off full of people, Americans and Afghans alike, every 48 minutes,” he boasted. “And not one single mission was missed. So, I’m sorry, I just won’t buy the whole argument of chaos.”
Do you think Kirby had a better “perch” than say… US Marine Corps Sergeant Tyler Vargas- Andrews?
In March, the 25-year-old delivered emotional testimony in a hearing held by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Vargas-Andrews fought back tears as he described the moment that a suicide bomber attacked Kabul Airport’s Abbey Gate.
“A flash and a massive wave of pressure. I’m thrown 4 feet onto the ground but instantly knew what had happened. I opened my eyes to Marines dead or unconscious lying around me. A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished in front of me. And my body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings now in it.”
Apparently accounts like the one from Vargas-Andrews and the murders of the 13 US service members do not make a strong enough case for Kirby to buy the idea that the withdrawal was chaotic.
But Kirby’s version of events is a much tougher sell.
“Nobody is saying that everything was perfect, but there was a lot that went right,” he told the group of flabbergasted reporters. “And a lot of Afghans are now living better lives in this country and other countries around the world because of the sacrifices and the work of so many American government officials.”
A lot of Afghans are living better lives? Except for the ones who were desperately clinging to the departing military jet in Kabul before plunging to their deaths, right John?
Or did you not see that chaos from your “perch” admiral?