Nikki Haley, should she become president, ought to appoint her husband as her chief military advisor.
He could not do any worse than what we have now.
He is South Carolina Army National Guard Maj. Michael Haley who is currently deployed with his unit in Africa in support of the U.S. Africa Command. It is Haley’s second deployment, following the first in Afghanistan in 2016.
If elected, President Haley could bring him home, make him a general and rely on him to tell her and the American people the truth.
That way she and the American people could at least hope for some accountability surrounding President Joe Biden’s deadly, chaotic and embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago.
They are certainly not getting it now. What they are getting, instead is a massive coverup from Biden and the Pentagon. Their posture is that these things just happen, you see, and nobody is to blame, even as the country observes the second anniversary of that disaster with no answers.
Thirteen American service members—11 Marines, on Army soldier and one Navy medic—were killed outside the Kabul Airport by a suicide bomber during Biden’s precipitous cut and run operation. The bomber could have been taken out earlier.
Former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was wounded during the bombing, testified a year ago at a Congressional hearing that he and a fellow Marine spotted the suspected bomber outside the airport and requested permission to take him out.
The permission was denied, he said. “Plain and simple, we were ignored.”
He added, “There was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence.”
The bomb went off.
“I see the faces of all those we could not save, those we left behind.”
At that time, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, promised answers to the parents and relatives of those killed.
Milley said, “We owe them transparency, we owe them honesty, we owe them accountability. We owe them the truth about what happened to their loved ones.”
Since then, there has been no transparency, no honesty, no accountability and no truth. Nothing.
No one has been held accountable, not Biden, not Milley, not Secretary Defense Lloyd Austin, not Marine Corps commanding Gen Kenneth F. McKenzie, or the officer who denied permission to kill the bomber. Nobody.
Families of the men and women who were killed at the airport appeared again before the Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee roundtable last week seeking answers but getting none.
They denounced Biden and his administration for the lack of answers to what happened that day outside the Kabul Airport.
“We’ve been lied to about what happened that day, as well as what happened to our children,” Greg Page, the father of Marine Cpl. Daegan W. Page who was killed that day, said.
Kelly Barnett, mother of Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin Hooever, who was also killed, said, “I don’t’ want to hear lies. I don’t want to hear excuses from Joe Biden, from the administration.”
Biden, calling the evacuation a success, is “like a knife in the heart for our families,” Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law of U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole Gee, who was killed, said.
Steve Nikoui, father of slain Marine Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui said that Biden should honor the 13 service members killed with a Rose Garden observance, which is not likely to happen.
Biden is putting as much distance between him and the event as he possibly can.
Upon the first anniversary of the bombing Biden issued a six-paragraph statement which including the names of all 13 service members who were killed. He called them heroes “working to save lives as part of the largest airlift evacuation operation in our history.”
On the second anniversary last Saturday, Biden’s second statement was pared down to three paragraphs with no listing of the names. He said those killed performed a “noble” mission but did not even say what the mission was. Or who they were.
Maybe he forgot.
Peter Lucas ais a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
